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In my 62 years on this earth, this was the most intense and beautiful lighting show I have ever witnessed. It really got me close to God! It was my second spiritual experience at the end of the road. 8-10-21
Perhaps I shouldn't have gone to the pond today. It was warm, but it was extremely windy. I thought I could get some dragonflies just perched, and more important knowing that females darners perch in the grass even during the day when the wind must buffet even the best three-inch fliers.
Instead, I found a number of Pacific Forktails perched. Perhaps they'd been hunting, and maybe I could get one with a mosquito or gnat "over for lunch." Instead, I ended up with almost duplicates from previous forays. I wondered, if these are so colorful, what must the multicolored head look like really up close? This is the answer! Blue, orange, blue-grey, blue-gray south of the border, purple eyes ... and all in perhaps a quarter-inch of its whole body.
Well, I was hoping for more duckweed, but I'll certainly settle for this beauty and her pick of perches. While the male looks like a Bluet with a predominantly black body with less blue than most, the female is the most distinctive of damsels if you can get close enough.
I also went out to the Slough, and found some "unique" wild hibiscus, what look like hollyhocks, and a few marsh plants that are new to me. We'll get to those on Monday unless something even better is found tomorrow. (And for variety, I still have a few birds in archives that can fill the avian void we're experiencing inland right now.)
An ant (likely Formica argentea as it was identified before in the same flower bed and the abdomen seems to fit) is seemingly farming 2 winged aphids on a Pink-flowering Onion stem. Home, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. 4 August 2022
Turtle Dove
Streptopelia turtur
The Turtle Dove is smaller and darker than the Collared Dove – slightly larger than a Blackbird. Its upperparts are distinctively mottled with chestnut and black, and its black tail has a white edge.
Taken with my Nikon D850 edited with ChatGPT.