Wildflowers and Bees

What’s happening in my yard?  Lots of wildflowers this year and the bees are collecting pollen!  All of these photos were made with my Nikon Coolpix P7000.

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The above is a broad view of my front yard.  Blooming are Desert Bluebells and Mexican Gold Poppies. There are a few Lupine starting to bloom too.

Wildflowers growing in the space between the drive and the garage floor in front of the garage door.

Wildflowers growing in the space between the drive and the garage floor in front of the garage door.

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It’s so fun to watch the bees hard at work and I have never been stung.

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It amazes me how far they get as far into the flower as possible.

The tiniest bee I have ever seen!

The tiniest bee I have ever seen!

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Although my yard is almost in full bloom, the early bloomers are already going to seed.  The wildflowers are so confused this year with the early warm temperatures.  Typically my yard is not in full bloom until the third week of March.

Bee barely hanging on!

What a surprise to look at this photo at 100% when I was processing it.  Shocked that the bee is in focus and barely hanging on!

I did shoot with my DSLR and macro lens today, maybe one of those photos will be my Friday Floral post tomorrow!

Friday Floral – Bold Color

Nikon D7000, Nikkor Micro 105mm 2.8 VR, f5.6, 1/50 sec, iso 400, polarizer filter
Nikon D7000, Nikkor Micro 105mm 2.8 VR, f5.6, 1/50 sec, iso 400,
polarizer filter, basic post processing

It was a windy afternoon the day I made this image and it had just rained.  A Mexican Gold Poppy with a few raindrops still holding on.  When photographing wildflowers I have a tendency  to have as much bold color as possible.  The background colors are other wildflowers, foliage and believe it or not the neighbors recycling container.  Yes, that’s right, the bright blue/turquoise in the background is a recycling container.   At first I thought about moving the recycling container as it was “in the way”.  Then looking through the viewfinder, I realized it made a beautiful background color with the Mexican Gold Poppy!

For my other Friday Floral posts, click on Friday Floral at the top of the page.