pictures from April, part II

[jinian]

I think this was April 24, though I can't find a reference apart from the file dates. I went out for a wander with lakmiseiru, who as usual was lookin' at birds. There were MANY BIRDS. I am not so good at photographing the birds, as they are small and fast, but there was a nifty nest that caught my attention:



And then we noticed that there was a bird (juvenile red-tailed hawk, right?) sitting quite still nearby, due to its being busy eating another bird (baby coot, by the feet). Two of the pictures are better than nothing:





There were also plants, of course, having sex, of course.

Pollinator assist (bumblebee on apple):



Exserted anther technique on male willow:


and on plantain:



I think there were bumblebees at the honeysuckle, too, but they were camera-shy.



I risked my life, or at least my state of relative dryness, to get a photo of the first yellow flag of the season. Tippy floating logs! Luckily there was a cane handy. The photo is no good, but I am damned well posting it anyway.



Three views of Mount Rainier from various places in the fill. It was clearer on this day than when we'd gone canoeing a week or two before, and I had a better camera, so some shots actually worked out all right. (I still feel like a photography poser, but I am pleased with these and they're behind a cut, so nyah.)

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Plantain? Like the banana-esque fruit? They grow there?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Nope, there's more than one completely different type of plant called plantain. This one is genus Plantago (Plantaginaceae), not genus Musa (Musaceae), and you probably have it there too. They just happen to sound the same; the OED says the banana is from the Spanish for "plane tree" (which isn't closely related either, ha) while the weed is from Latin for "sole of the foot" via Middle English.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I had no idea!

Nothing grows here but cactus, bindweed, and squash -- and that, only in the exceptional event that we manage to go a month without devastating hail. Le grumble.