oddities
The unusual, the slightly weird, or odd attracted my camera this week. Matter of fact, I had intended the entire blog to be devoted to another agave or century plant that is blooming in the neighborhood. It seems odd to me that two different plants around the corner from each other would bloom in successive years. But they did. Mind you, because I do not know the provenance of either agave, there is no way of knowing how old they are, their place of origin or how old the plants were when they arrived in the area. Last years huge specimen had yellow buds and flowers while this year's is sporting coral colored buds that are oddly rendering yellow flowers. That is the joy of nature.
But yesterday morning, while having coffee on our small patio, there were very little creatures crawling around on the sandstone. Strange things happen after a hard rain in New Mexico and Saturday night, there was a righteous thunderstorm, yielding 1.05 inches of rain. Literally, things crawl out of many places after it rains in earnest. On closer inspection, Fred noticed that they were snails. Knowing full well that some of you may think of snails as the bane of your existence, I nonetheless had to photograph them just because we have never had them anywhere we have lived. And they were really, really small. So in addition to the macro lens, a tape measure was required for scale. Thus, both the snails and the agave blooms made it into today's blog.
Beginning with the agave, here is the beautiful desert plant as most people see it in a native environment....
...or in a garden
And from this emerges a 10 foot high bloom stalk that yields heaven for bees and other pollinators. Everything that appears to be a dark spot on the image is a bee in motion. Looking at the flowers, I feel connected to ancient history.
Moving on to another ancient creature, the humble snail. These gastropods have been around since the Paleozoic era, some 520 million years ago. To catch these little wonders, I used a macro lens and a fill flash.
Looking closely, you can see the "snail trail" left by the foot as a communication tool for other snails.
With two thunderstorms yielding 2.54 inches here June (not a lot for many parts of the world but for the drier climes of New Mexico it is substantial), I await more oddities to photograph as July begins.
Thanks to Tim, Lawrence, Jean & Sam, Larry & Carol M., M. Fred, Catherine, Steve, Barbara F. R., Kay, and Ingrid for commenting on last week's blog.
until next Monday,
DB
a passion for the image©
Comments
You've surprised with the snail images. That 3/8-inch creature is a marvel. I was unaware of the "snail trail" being left for its brethren. I've seen the marks but didn't know their purpose.
Thaks for this week's biology lesson. I look forward to next week's class.