Golden Dragon

A huge response to my Farmgirl blip of yesterday. She made top spot on the spotlight page and page two of the favorites. For all your wonderful comments and accolades, we thank you.

I visited three locations this morning; first ‘the grove’, as the sky was clear and very hot. I figured a good day for a static stakeout. But for some reason there were very few creeping foxglove blooms about. So after a quick circuit with very little to show, I moved on to ‘the stream’ location.

For a change, I decided to go south of the road as I haven’t been down here for many months. The wet paddy fields have all been converted to dry crops of lettuce and cabbage. As these are leaf crops, there has been extensive spraying of insecticides and the bushes along the path have been cut back to discourage the insect populations. There was absolutely nothing for me here and I didn’t fire off a single shot.

So, back to my usual stomping ground, north of the road. Here it has been a very weak August for bugs compared with last year. I suspect the sprayers have been along here also as some of the paddy fields higher up the valley have also been converted to dry crops.

I did see the yellow carpenter bee, but it was flitting around rather than working a small territory, so it was not worth the effort of wading into the muddy paddy, besides, I had forgotten my hand towel.

The dragons are always a good standby and this one was very accommodating. I was going to post the cropped version, to show off the dazzling color and a bit of detail, but at the last second I deleted the upload and went for the full display.

It may be time to find a new safari location, as the stream safari is getting a bit frustrating. I will have to check out Google earth and see if I can find anything.

Dave