Just a quickie. This one was really hard to photograph because the plant is a big, sprawling mess really. At first I thought it might have been some long-finished columbine. A little closer and I thought it might be a kind of bleeding heart, then I noticed the flowers were missing their other half and had yellow at the opening. Nope, not bleeding heart. Not having ever seen it before I had no idea and it took a couple flips through the wildflower book to figure it out.
It was a little bit breezy and so even when I found an interesting couple of blossoms, it was a test of my patience to wait for the calm moments. That’s why I didn’t even see that mosquito until I got the shot into Lightroom. I was staring at the flower on my screen waiting for stillness. Plus I was on this rockpile, which is where these flowers like to grow according to my guide, and it was difficult to get into a position that was anywhere near comfortable. LOL. I had an idea to turn this shot 90 degrees to get the flower oriented correctly, they actually hang vertically with that little crest on top and the yellow opening on the bottom, but I kind of like it this way, especially with that little blood sucker in there. Actually, that may be a male mosquito given the color (dig the blue stripes) and the feathery antenna, and males eat nectar not blood, but I have no idea. After doing a bit of scouting on the web for a confirmation of my ID, I realized what a distinctive image it is so I went with it.
Wait, did I say a quick post? Oy. So much for that. As a bonus, here’s another shot –
Love the water drop in the 2nd photo too!
Fantastic images.
Isn’t it amazing how we sometimes miss something so obvious by focusing on just one part of the picture – makes for great discoveries when we upload the pictures afterwards. I really like both shots, the first one for the serendipitous moskito companion, the second one for the lush image plus raindrop.
I always have mixed feelings when I see stuff like that in post. I love finding it and there’s a little shot of joy that comes with seeing it for the first time, but then I feel dumb for not noticing it in the field. lol
I think it’s a very normal process when we focus on something, the periphery of vision just doesn’t register.