asakiyume | Insect, meet flower

Please enjoy the flying friend on the right-hand side of the picture, coming in for a landing (you can click through to see the photo larger and catch all the details)

And the many many creatures enjoying the nectar of this magnificent bloom

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From:

osprey_archer

That second flower picture is amazing! The detail on the petals... the contrast between light and shadow...

From:

asakiyume

Thanks! I brought along an actual [digital] camera so I could capture things like that because my phone camera is Not That Good, and tends to bleach out photos when the light is very bright--like in the Amazon. With the camera I brought along, I could limit the light coming into the camera and catch details (but it took effort and time to set up, so most of the time I just went with the phone camera).

From:

sovay

With the camera I brought along, I could limit the light coming into the camera and catch details (but it took effort and time to set up

It paid off! These pictures are beautiful.

(no subject)

From:

asakiyume - Date: 2022-08-13 07:43 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

gale_storm

What fantastic flower photos!! The flying friend you captured in the first may want to say, “No, they got me from a bad angle” or “It was my bad side,” but I think they’re great!

From:

asakiyume

I didn't even notice him when I first looked at the photo--and then suddenly saw him, clear as day.

From:

cmcmck

Do you know what manner of beastie you have there?

From:

asakiyume

I do not! Neither plant nor insect!

From:

amaebi

Top flower is a canna of some sort, FWIW. And with less confidence, the insect looks to me like a wasp-- not a species I know, I think.

(no subject)

From:

asakiyume - Date: 2022-08-13 07:47 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

amaebi

Ooh! Ooh!

After having just one calliope hummingbird since May, we now have a couple, and a black-chinned, and a broadtail. Which speaks of early migration, but I still. pleasure.

From:

asakiyume

How wonderful about the hummingbirds! I have looked at pictures of all of them so I can enjoy them too.

I saw only one hummingbird in Colombia this time, in spite of it being chock-full of hummingbirds as a geographical region, and that one was in a garden in Bogotá rather than in Letícia, but still: wonderful.

And yesterday when I was outside, lounging on my back among my plants, a female ruby-throated came up and hovered in front of me, chattering! A treat ^_^

(no subject)

From:

asakiyume

Well! The first appears to be some kind of Canna:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canna_(plant)

I will now look for the other one...

(no subject)

From:

sovay - Date: 2022-08-13 07:24 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From:

asakiyume - Date: 2022-08-13 07:26 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

asakiyume

Score! The second is Etlingera elatior, known as torch ginger, among other names!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etlingera_elatior

Thanks for prompting me to look!

(no subject)

From:

sovay - Date: 2022-08-13 07:39 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

minoanmiss

*delights*

From:

asakiyume

*so glad*

From:

rachelmanija

Wow! Gorgeous.

From:

asakiyume

I loved it there so much...

From:

sartorias

Wow, what gorgeous photos!

From:

asakiyume

Thank you! I had good subject matter ;-)

From:

wayfaringwordhack

They had lovely torch ginger in Mayotte, which I called by another common name: porcelain rose because I learned it as "rose porcelaine" in French. :)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/2e/7b/692e7b5f9915f7e2b1a6664f0991aa32.jpg. (not my photo. While looking through my "Mayotte" tagged photos with the kids yesterday to show them some of J's spearfishing catches, I did not come across many flower photos. I could spend a while looking under the other tags, but I am going to try to write a bit while the house is quiet. The rest of this comment will show you that I have already spent more time doing other stuff than I needed to. :P )

I loved those and the parrot's beak.

While trying to identify the species of Vespidae (?), I went down a rabbit trail and read this sad article about Costa Rica and a couple's battle to save native bees. It makes me doubly sad because Costa Rica's supposed support of nature is pretty much a veneer when you get down to brass tacks (according to the article, they have one of the highest uses of pesticides in the world). For various reasons, Costa Rica was pretty high on our list of where we might go to settle, but much of our research since shows that marketing is marketing (or propaganda is propaganda) the world over and looking under the rugs often shows huge heaps of uncomfortable dirt. :( I know that no place is perfect, no society has it all together, but confirmation of it still sucks.

Edited Date: 2022-08-14 08:04 am (UTC)

From:

asakiyume

Oooh, I like that torch ginger/porcelain rose too! Gorgeous.

I didn't know that about Costa Rica--I too had heard primarily the marketing--but while on the one hand I'm not surprised (just human nature being what human nature is, I'm never surprised by revelations like that), I also wouldn't give up on the country based on one article. The fact that Costa Rica is known for its environmentalism means that there *is* positive pressure on agriculture etc. to do the right thing. This article says they have one of the highest pesticide uses, but whenever you see a claim like that, it's always good to find out based on what. One of the highest per its agricultural output? One of the highest per capita? One of the highest in absolute terms? (I highly doubt that last.) And, there's pesticides and pesticides. Neonicotinides were originally thought safe for bees; now it's thought maybe not so much ... but even if neonicotinoids are less safe than they originally seemed, they're way better than earlier pesticides. What I'm saying is, Costa Rica could have a high level of use of pesticides and even so, it might be not as bad as it originally seems--especially not as bad as an article written out of concern over local bees makes things sound.

... By this I'm not trying to suggest that the concern is invalid: I think it's valid! Just that in an imperfect world in which all nation-states can be shown to be awful, maybe Costa Rica is still not as bad as all that. If we imagine that stated values say something about the place we wish we were (even if it's not the place we actually are), then Costa Rica's stated environmentalism means something (compare it with Jair Bolsonaro's explicit let-the-rainforest-be-exploited policies in Brazil, for instance).

And I mean, I know from your last sentence that you understand what I'm saying, too, and you were just reacting to the bad revelations in that article. I'm just stressing that the good things about Costa Rica aren't all lies, even if the truth is less rosy than the tourist brochures give out.