The blue butterfly

I looked up the name of this butterfly, it's called a Red Spotted Purple.

They are everywhere this summer, landing on the walls and driveway, not very afraid of people.

I had to search for the butterfly name online, I found it at http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/intermediate.asp?curGroupID=2

It's really interesting, there are Swallowtails, Skippers, Metalmarks, Fritillaries, Eyespots, and all the colors (copper, blue, white). They also classify them as folded wings, spread wings, angle wings, and hairstreaks.

Blue Heron

These birds are more common now, we see them near the lakes in the area and flying overhead.

They fish in shallow water, have a 6 foot wingspan, and can fly right at the water level without getting wet or falling in the water.

They do not bring babies to your house, that's a stork.

Butterflies like poop!

I saw lots of raccoon and possum droppings on the road of Fleming Park this weekend. Each one was covered with butterflies.

I'm not sure why they like them so much, but they seem to swarm around them every time!

Bagworms!

We've hit that time of the summer where the bagworms come out.

They make a big bag out of silk webbing and grow up in there while eating the leaves off the tree.

My dad used to carefully cut them off the tree and burn them. When you get up close, you can see the worms squiggling around in their little web home.

The Locust Days of Summer

It's that time of year again. The buzzing of the locusts have been very prominent the last week.

I was telling a story to my wife and her parents This weekend. We were talking about the loud buzzing drone of the locust, and I remembered seeing them just emerging from their larval shells when I was young. We were at boy scout camp one summer, and we were finding locusts on trees while they were emerging from their beetlelike stage. The back of the shell opened up and they struggled out and then did this fascinating magic trick.

They transformed before our eyes.

The wings unfurled and the body changed shape and the locust changed color. I don't remember that the process took that long. Little boys are notoriously impatient, and I had no problem watching the entire process, so I'm guessing it only takes 3 minutes or so.

Then I went into the front yard less than an hour later and found one doing it's magic trick. I hadn't see it for years. So remember, sometimes just talking about something and makes it happen.

Old Faithful

This is the Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, erupting at night.

Above the geyser is the planet Jupiter, and to the left is the Milky Way.

I hope we see something this beautiful when we visit later this month!

The picture was shown on The Astronomy Picture of the Day at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/

The photographer is Wally Pacholka who has some other amazing photos at: http://www.astropics.com/latimes.htm

It's a Miracle!

This rock is part of the signboard for the Cathedral of the Plains in Victoria Kansas.

Looking closely at the base of the structure, I noticed this shape of the Virgin Mary kneeling in prayer.

It's a miracle.

Faces 1

Does anyone else see the face of our President in the reflection of the cloud in this picture?

Seeing Faces 2

Can you see the silouette in the shadow on Barb's arm?

Anyone know who that is?

The Great White Peacock

When I was in High School, Ted Nugent had a song out call The Great White Buffalo.

It was cool.

The Indians believed that a white buffalo was a sacred animal. Several have been born, and several are living right now. There is a lady in Flagstaff Arizona that is successfully breeding them. They are still very rare.

There is a difference between a white animal and an albino one. One in 17,000 people are albinos. That's really not that rare, but I have never seen one. That means there are about 4,300 in the U.S. and about 30 in the Kansas City area. Or around 92,000 of them worldwide.

An albino is a fish, bird, reptile, amphibian, or mammal with no pigment. That means the hair is white, the skin is very white, and the eyes look pink because you are seeing the blood flowing in the vessels in the back of the eyes. Some animals are just white, like a Polar Bear. They have dark brown, almost black eyes. So a Polar Bear is not an albino bear, just a white bear.

Peacocks are related to pheasants and normally bright blue and green. There are two breeds of peacocks, Indian and Green. The white peacock shown here is a white variety of the Indian breed. Apparently, the guy that has them has gotten them to breed true, but I don't know how many he has. This is not an albino, note that the eyes are not pink.

Also, a female is called a Peahen and the proper name for all of them is Peafowl, but don't expect people to be correct on that!

The fun thing about Peacocks (see, I'm doing it too) is the noise they make. Many people keep them around, like chickens or geese, and they make this sound that is like a baby crying or a cat being twisted by some cruel cat torturer. We used to have a lady across the street that had them. I liked finding the feathers. I wonder if they would get along with the cats?

Hey Hey it's the Monkeys!

When I was in Ecuador for the Army, I got to go to Ecuador.

It was really cool. I want to go back some day because it was beautiful and the people were wonderful. Quito, the capital, was cool and sunny. It was cool because it was in the mountains, and it was sunny because it was on the equator.

Our job was to survey a road in the jungle, and we slept in a base camp built on a soccer field south of a town called Archidona. Our commanding officer for some of the time was a Captain Jarvis, this guy that was a goofy National Guard officer.

We drove out to the jungle in a Army Chevy Pickup truck that was fitted with a canvas cover over the back and benches down either side, so you could put about 8 people comfortably in the back. By Army regulations, you weren't supposed to pick up civilians in Army vehicles. You weren't supposed to give rides. But we were almost the only thing going out to the end of the road, and there were plenty of people that were on foot that would wave hopefully, looking for a ride. So we gave them rides. I should say that the Captain gave them rides, since he was driving. I thought this was a really bad idea at the time, not the least of which was because I rode in the back and a lot of unwashed and very ripe smelling people would absolutely cram into the back of the truck. The Ecuadorians (and many were native Quechua people) had no concept of personal space like we do. So they jumped in and practically sat in my lap. I remember Smith and Woodruff didn't like it at all and made hilarious comments about it. This was because we assumed that they didn't speak any English, and they were being a little mean about that. I think they were right though. I never ran into anyone in that part of the country that spoke English, and many didn't even speak Spanish, they spoke Chechua.

One day this very happy man got on the truck and sat knee to knee across from me. I noticed he was happy and somewhat antsy, and at first I just thought he was happy to get a ride.

Then I noticed that his hair had eyes.

I did a double-take. Surprised at hell and not sure what I was looking at. The man had a tiny monkey on his head. This little monkey had a head about the size of a walnut with this little tiny almost human face on it, complete with bright, alert, intelligent brown eyes. The monkey would lie down on his stomach on the guy's head and he spread his arms out and gripped the man's hair to hold on. His back legs were on the back of the man's neck and the long tail was wrapped around the man's neck like a furry necklace. That monkey wasn't going anywhere as we bucked and bumped down the road.

The man obviously loved the little monkey like a child. He would reach up and pull the monkey of his head to hold against his chest to pet, but the monkey would work his way back up to the top of the head after a few pets.

I still remember the man well after all these years. We rode in silence for about 10 minutes, then the truck stopped and he disappeared down a path in the jungle. I never saw him again.