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Orange We Special?!

Dryas iulia

Butterfly Wonderland, Scottsdale, AZ is indeed a wonderful place to find hundreds of beautiful butterflies, and as luck would have it, this particular one was perched on a Mexican Flame Flower of the same color, and a similar name.

Commonly called the Julia butterfly, the flame, or flambeau, is a species of brush-footed butterfly, native from Brazil to southern Texas and Florida, and in summer can sometimes be found as far north as eastern Nebraska.

While dodging these winged wonders and having them land on our heads and hands, both my husband and I indulged in their beauty and agility. And, we watched in wonder as some attempted to mate, but as we discovered later, male and female butterflies may go on a courtship flight that can last for an hour or more; but with our limited time and my long, heavy camera/lens combo, we weren’t about to wait that long.

However, I do have some very close encounter images, one of which I’ll share with you tomorrow, just for “porn” sake. 

Arizona Landscape

Primarily, I consider myself a bird photographer, and since Saguaro cacti are magnetics for cactus wrens, capturing one was my first thought when finding this statuesque 8-armed prickly beauty.

Although the birds refused to cooperate, I knew the clouds in the distance would be a rare occurrence during our visit, and since the temperatures were higher than normal for this time of year, the landscape before me was parched, but enticing enough to afford a photo – and my first one on our trip.

Over Mt. Shasta

This view was a perfect and unexpected ending to our long awaited trip to Phoenix and Scottsdale, AZ.

I rarely have a window seat that affords this kind of view, but since when we had such great seats, I was planning on getting a phone shot of Mt. Rainier through the porthole. Leaving Sacramento afforded an excellent view of Mt. Shasta instead, and later a chance to see Crater Lake from the air as well.

With that said, our trip on the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island was a sea of fog…but nonetheless, coming back to Sequim was the best part of our journey. Little did I know how much I’d miss our gorgeous TREES, the color GREEN, and CLOUDS!

So if you should catch me complaining about the cold, or anything else we have in Sequim, please remind me that we’re truly in God’s Country and some of the luckiest people on the planet!

Not Exactly Sequim…

We’re back from the desert and before I say more, I want to thank both Lewis Bennett and Ardythe Wyndt for filling in for me last week. It helped to make our stay in Phoenix much more enjoyable, and I know you readers appreciated seeing their work.

With that said…it was quite a week, and I came home with hundreds of images from our trips to two botanical gardens (I was craving a “green” fix from the moment we stepped off the plane) and Butterfly World in Scottsdale. I hope you’ll enjoy sharing in our adventures in the week ahead. If anything, this trip made me appreciate the Pacific Northwest and Sequim much more than I ever envisioned!

Sea Lion Sunday

This is really getting a jump on the season, but when I got an email from Puget Sound Express yesterday announcing their March whale watching trips, it got me browsing through my photos to relive a trip we took with them in 2021.

In 2021, whale watching boats were required to maintain a distance of 200 yards, and given that, I had come prepared with my longest telephoto lens, as well as a collection of others to ensure I wouldn’t miss a shot.

While cruising the Salish Sea searching for orcas, humpbacks, and grays, these sea lions kept us entertained by barking, twisting and turning on the rocks, and sending occasional waves with flips of their tails; and when the captain stopped the boat, I knew we’d be getting our monies worth.

Within what seemed like minutes, a humpback was swimming directly under our boat and within such close proximity to me that my longest lens was way tooooo long. Anxious to get some shots, I had to make a quick trip inside the cabin to change lenses, while dodging a crowd of onlookers, and navigating a rocking boat.

Back on deck, the crowd had dispersed, along with the whale, but I found my husband holding a railing, drenched from head to toe from the spray of the whale’s blowhole!

As I burst into laughter, we both relived an experience where years earlier, when I had fallen head over heels into the water at Des Moines Marina when he had taken a sharp turn with our boat…

and while I refrained from shouting, “touché” I did try to help him dry off – even while he reeked from the smell of the whale. So the moral of the story is…go, but when you go, remember your rain gear!