On yesterday's hike around the nature trail loop, I saw lots of things besides daisies, but I separated out the daisy photos to emphasize their attraction for many kinds of bugs. Today I'm posting the most interesting of the remaining sights - not counting the trees and the sky, for i seldom looked up.
First, on the main watercourse coming from the leaky water tank down to the main campus, I saw some blooming flowers, but also a lot of damage from the high waters of a few weeks ago. Only one blooming Leopard Lily (above) in an are that normally has dozens blooming around this time of year. The one remaining looked a little beat up. I tipped it sideways to get a better view of the inner flower, the reproductive organs.
A bit away from the watercourse there were lots of Checker Bloom, in fact more than I've seen suring most summers. It seems some species suffer a setback while others seem to gain from a harsher than normal winter.
Definitely a bumper crop of Gooseberries. I wonder if the wild animals will get to them before I do. I'll check every few days to try to be there when they ripen.
A closer view shows the dried up flower parts at the tips of most of the berries.
Also in the main watercourse near the Leopard Lilies were a few Seep Spring Monkeyflower. They looked a bit beat up from the recent floods.
No set of photos is complete without some sort of bugs. I tipped over a large piece of bark to find this pair of Ground Beetles. That's a large category of beetles, and I barely recognize a few types. They are distinguished by their inclination to run away and hide very quickly when exposed, as compared to other species that seem unperturbed when exposed, making them easier to photograph. I was lucky to get these to sit still for a few moments. Maybe because it was still relatively cool, or maybe because they were preoccupied with each other. I covered them up after the photos so I'd be able to photograph their progeny next year.
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