Yep, more rudbeckia photos. As I said in a prior post, my garden has mostly rudbeckias and cosmoses so you will see a lot of them either as stand alones or as support for insects.
I don’t know if this real bee or a mimic on this rudbeckia.
Rudbeckia by itself
Another rudbeckia
And another rudbeckia with an unknown insect. I think at one time I knew this insect but after about 20 minutes of searching my photos I gave up trying to figure out what it is. I did see a few photos though that I had forgotten about, and really like, so not a complete waste of time.
One of my favorite rudbeckia poses: little yellow and green fingers reaching around to protect the bud.
Purple coneflower seed head
We took our almost annual family trip to Florida last year and of all the photos I took these are the only three (other than family photos) I kept, and I’m not sure why I kept this first one of the gull. It’s “expression” is very perplexing to me, I can’t put my finger on it.
I don’t know if this is a crane or an egret ore something else. It is unique though with its pirate peg leg.
I used flash on this photo and the one above. The actual sky in the raw files was a dull but bright gray and was hard to expose for detail on the bird. In post I added a new sky to highlight the bird even more.
Thank you for stopping by.
David
It's Complicated 
I think that the white bird is an Egret, a Snowy egret. The Snowy Egrets have yellow feet. I know that you can’t see the feet, but they also have black bills. The other white bird is a Great egret, but they have yellow bills.
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Thank you for the info topcat; it’s nice to hear from you.
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What wonderful pictures of the plants are these! I have no knowledge what so ever of flowers, but the shapes and colours are glorious. I Love the image of the yellow and green ‘fingers’ protecting the bud and also the ways you described it. That is so touching!
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Thank you so much for your very kind words; they are very much appreciated.
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That gull has a look of disdain. Nice series of shots David.
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Thank you Brian. I think disdain might what I was seeing in him.
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Fantastic colors in your flowers, a pure explosion in the eye of the beholder. I rarely use flash outdoors, but your image of the white egrets gets a special effect and contrast to the sky, delicious!
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Thank you Hans. I don’t use flash that often outdoors but it is a life saver when I have a strong back lit subject. It also comes in handy when shooting macro in the late afternoon and I’e got my camera poked deep in the shadows of a stand of flowers.
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Very nice photos, David! That looks like a bee to me, maybe a wasp, but definitely not a fly mimic. The second one is a moth, but I can’t say more than that. I’d see if it’s a fairy moth, but they usually have longer antennae. I really like the inscrutable gull.
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Thanks Michael. I was leaning more toward bee than mimic but wasp didn’t occur to me. Hopefully I run across it, or another like it, again and get a better shot for ID. I was pretty sure the second was a moth and I am positive I’ve identified it before, just need to run it down. I noticed the rear end looked kind of funny and at one time thought it might be two mating, but I’m pretty sure now that is not the case. But there may be a drop of water on its rear.
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It’s a beautiful photo David.
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Muchas gracias CarMac! I have now shared with you almost half of the Spanish words that I know.
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Thanks David. Eres muy amable.
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These are all magnificent, David!
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Thank you very much Pete.
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Stunning macros, David, and you’ve captured Snowy Egrets on the platform. I don’t recall ever seeing a footless bird before.
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Thanks Donna. I’m starting to acquire quite a collection of, for lack of a better phrase, avian anomalies. I had the bald northern cardinal in 2018, this one footed egret in 2019. So far this year I’ve captured a male house finch with yellow feathers on his chest in addition to the red, and late yesterday afternoon I found a common grackle in my back yard who had some white tail feathers and a beak that look as though the point had been clipped off leaving him with a flat shovel looking beak. Who knows, In a few more years I might have enough to publish a book: Avian Anomalies (when things go wrong with birds). 🙂
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You do seem to be on a roll for a book! 😃
Since I saw your footless Snowy Egret, I’ve been thinking about it, wondering if it actually stands on the leg, how it fishes, etc. It was an adult and looked quite healthy which made me happy.
I was wrong on not seeing a footless bird before, I did share an Eagle in flight back in 2019 that was footless/legless. http://bayphotosbydonna.com/2019/05/13/bald-eagle-a-survivor/
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That garden of yours has lots of great shots coming out of it David.
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Thanks John. This year with the stay at home order in our county I got very few photos March through May and my garden didn’t start blooming until mid June. Then it turned HOT and MUGGY and has been that way til now. I now have a little more options of places to go to photograph but with with upper 80 and lower 90 temps and 100+ heat indexes I don’t want to go anywhere. Hopefully temps will get better and I can get in enough shots for next year’s posts. Otherwise I’ll have to start sharing pics of the grandkids. 🙂
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