When I first saw a carpenter bee, I thought it was a bumblebee - so much larger, and darker, than an ordinary honeybee. But they don't buzz as loudly as bumblebees, nor do they have the bumblebee's distinctive striping, and their flight patterns are more of a high-speed zigging and zagging than other bees. Also, they don't like to hold still - which makes it challenging for a novice wildlife photographer to get a good shot.
Here is my favorite carpenter bee portrait from today---
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I saw this Swallowtail butterfly on the moist sand at Arizona Beach, on the Oregon Coast. I later discovered butterflies need the moist salt found there, for nourishment, for their future flights and cross-continental migrations.
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I felt lucky to see it - and lucky that I had my Sony RX10M4 with its wonderfully capable Zeiss telephoto zoom.
On a hike through a redwood forest grove, on the northern California coast, I came across this carpenter bee who stayed obligingly still for my photograph. Looking closer, I realized that she was dead - a rather wonderful (to me, at least) example of laying down one's life for a cause - in this case, gathering pollen and nectar for her sisters, in the hive.
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