Summer Long-Horned Bee on Cosmos
I just love to observe the Summer Long-Horned bees Melissodes bimaculata. Up until last month I had never seen any, and now they are...
Honey Bee and the Scabiosa Alba
All of this very warm, sometimes hot weather brings a lot of bees to the garden. Just as I hoped, plant their food sources and the...
Black-tailed Bumble Bee sleeping
Look who was sleeping on a California Delta sunflower. Yet another bee that I had never seen before. This is a Black-tailed Bumble Bee,...
Anna's hummingbird on a tea tree branch
At last the heat wave broke and we have "cooler" temperatures in the 80's Fahrenheit! And there actually is a breeze. While I was in the...
The not so lucky Gulf Fritillary caterpillars
Yesterday I posted the life cycle of a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar, the first one we spotted on the passionflower vine. It is currently...
The Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar
As you know from earlier posts, we have a passionflower plant growing above one of the gates to the backyard and patio. It is a...
Anna's hummingbird and the salvia
Here is an Anna's hummingbird approaching one of the salvia plants in the afternoon. As you can see, it gets very bright here in the...
California Carpenter Bee visiting Coreopsis Grandiflora patch
I'm starting to see more carpenter bees visiting the garden. This California Carpenter Bee female Xylocopa californica was very...
Summer Long Horned Bee sleeping in the sunflower
Last week when I came home from work in the early evening I discovered this Summer Long-Horned male bee Melissodes robustior sleeping on...
Hover flies and cosmos blossoms
Sometimes those hover flies just seem to be everywhere I look in the native garden. They are very attracted to the cosmos blossoms. And...
