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Sunset
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Pumpkin Blossoms
You have to get up early in the morning to catch pumpkin blossoms at their peak. They’re spectacularly huge, but they start to wither as soon as the sun comes out. Here are two from a city garden that by this time of the year is mostly pumpkin vines.
Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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Butterfly Weed and Little Black Bees
Tiny black bees (probably some species of Chelostoma, but the entomologically inclined are earnestly invited to correct us) enjoying flowers on two slightly different shades of Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa).
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
Daylilies After the Rain
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Spotted Lanternfly Nymph on Cosmos
Olympus EN-20 with cheap screw-on close-up lens. Another picture of a Spotted Lanternfly nymph, just because it was posing so decoratively on a ray of Cosmos sulphureus.
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Spotted Lanternfly Nymph
Olympus E-20N with cheap screw-on close-up lens. These little black bugs with sporty polka dots are the earlier nymph stage of the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), the pest that has invaded Pittsburgh by the zillions and is threatening to kill off our local population of Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), another invasive pest that is the spotted lanternfly’s primary host. Old Pa Pitt recalls an old Roman saying about the curse of an answered prayer that seems appropriate here.
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Pumpkin Blossom in the Rain
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Another Look at Shakespeare’s Honeysuckle
We saw Lonicera periclymenum last year, and it’s blooming again, so we can take another look. This is what Shakespeare meant by “honeysuckle,” and unlike the closely related Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), this one is a polite guest that doesn’t take over whole counties.
Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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Rabbit That Thinks It’s Invisible
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. An Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) sitting very still in a patch of Crown Vetch (Securigera varia) in South Side Riverfront Park.
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The Falls at Ohiopyle
The falls of the Youghiogheny at Ohiopyle have long been pointed out as one of America’s natural wonders.
A cut from the Columbian magazine in 1787 shows us a picture that has hardly changed in the intervening 238 years, except that these days the view is less likely to include tricorn hats.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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