Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Busy Bees and Elusive Butterflies
We finally got the heat wave the rest of the country has been experiencing. Yesterday it was a blazing hot 97 degrees and we’re still expecting temperatures in the mid-nineties the rest of the week. It’s been too hot in my office to blog.
But today I was up early with the windows open and cool air coming in so I thought I’d bring you some pictures while I can.
It may be too hot for me, but the bees seem to be thriving.
And I’ve been tracking the elusive butterfly for several weeks now.
I’ve seen one or more swallowtails fluttering around in the garden high among the trees, teasing me it seems. I have lots of pictures like this. 😉
Still, I’ve been persistent and finally saw one land and stay still long enough for me to get some pictures.
When it did, I noticed its tail seemed a bit ragged.
Do these beautiful creatures fight? Did a bird take a bite?
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for them to have some damage on their wings and continue to fly and function.
Hopefully I’ll get more photos of them whole, but this will do for now.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
Beautiful, Susanne.
Thank you. 🙂
Beautiful bee pics and love the butterfly pictures! Those guys are fast, so hard to get pics of them. It’s been hot here too, yesterday was 102° and today supposed to be 108°. I’m staying inside in the A/C!
Thanks! Yes, it took a lot of time and chasing for the butterflies to finally land. 😊 Inside with A/C makes sense for today.
Stay cool. Yesterday we had 105 at our house 😀
Yikes! Hope you find a way to stay cool, too!
Staying inside with our heat pump running. It is not as efficient as a/c, but with these temps it keeps us at 73-74 until the temps drop down below 80.
Perfect Bee photos, Susanne. And you did well to persevere with the Swallowtail too!
Best wishes, Pete.
Thanks so much, Pete! 😊😊
My comment on your Oregon post didn’t appear. 🙂
Sorry, Pete, it’s true! I was getting so much spam, I’ve been trying out the trash filter. But no matter how short the keyword list, it always casts too wide a net, so I’m going to stop using it altogether.
Love the buzzy bee photos, Susanne. I really enjoy when our butterflies come to visit us, and they have not disappointed so far this season. I know you folks have all the heat right now and hope you get some relief sooner than later.
Thanks so much! I love bees and butterflies too! Bees are much easier to photograph. Looks like our heatwave will last through the weekend. We’ll survive. 😊
Beautiful photos! My lavender is being swarmed right now by bees which I am so happy to see!
Thanks, John! I love watching the bees and they sure do love lavender!
I am going to plant more…it’s beautiful and good for bees!
You can never have too much lavender! And the wonderful fragrance is so therapeutic!
Visually appealing as well – what’s not to love?
Yes, gorgeous!!
Absolutely love these photos.
Thank you so much. 🙂
Beautiful photos.
Thank you. 🙂
Everything is relative. For Southern CA anything under 100 in July is pure bliss.
Indeed. In the Pacific Northwest, the 90’s are sweltering because of the humidity. 100’s are unbearable!
Very photogenic bees! I’m so glad you have managed a photo of the butterfly – tattered or not, it is still beautiful!
Thanks so much! I persisted until it landed and was happy to finally get some pictures. 😊
Such beautiful photos of both bees and butterfly !!
Thanks so much!
Gorgeous little fellas!
Thank you! 🙂
Great photos, Susanne. Some butterflies get pretty ragged in their short lives.
Thanks, Graham. I guess I never noticed since I couldn’t get a picture close up. 😊