Friday, February 20, 2009

And the bug season begins, at last

Yay! Spring has come to our hilltop! These crocuses* were blooming in a neighbour's garden:


The palest of pale mauve crocuses.


Another pair.


With a few yellow crocuses for variety.


And, in a patch of succulents, these deeper mauve ones.

But look closer! The very first insects of the season!


Tiny beetles.

Unfortunately, I was resting from Wednesday's labours, and Laurie went out alone. (Well, not quite; he took along the camera for company.) So I didn't get a close-up, and I didn't bring a beetle home. I'll do that tomorrow.

And what do you think this is?


Maybe you have better eyes than I do; I couldn't make head nor tail of it, until ...


... I blew it up. A crow, stretching wings and tail, while he keeps a careful eye on that human nosing around the gardens down there.

* I can never be sure about the plural of "crocus". One crocus, two "crocuses"? Or two "croci", as some people insist on writing? I finally looked it up. It's "One crocus, two crocus, three crocus ..." Or, if you prefer (and I do), "two crocuses".

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2 comments:

  1. Spring flowers with a few beetles thrown in....just what I needed to cheer me up on on a depressing winter's week in Alberta!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:50 pm

    I hope you can manage some closeups of the beetles - I've never seen beetles in crocuses (croci?) and would like to know what they are.
    regards--ted

    ReplyDelete

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

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