Milkweed Photos

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Milkweed Honey
She really looked like she was concentrating on her work.
She paid no attention to me.
I guess those smaller flowers are kind of tough.
You've got to hover or find a place to stand while you work.
Don't have time to deal with pesky photographers.
So the milkweed is what the Monarch caterpillars eat which
makes the Monarch Butterflies poisonous to most predators.
It contains Glycosides, like Foxglove which is used to make
Digitalis, a heart medication. So I'm not sure I would want
to try that honey. Hopefully it is just the leaves and stem
that have the Glycosides in them.

Friday, August 18, 2006
Milk-Bee
In case you were wondering what the flower looked like that
caught my attention in yesterday's photo.
(I know it was just keeping you awake all night! :0)
This is about 6" further up.
And the bee? Well, she was nice enough to fly in right after
I was done finishing up with yesterday's subject!
I actually got quite a few interesting shots of the bee
working on these flowers. I picked this one because it
shows her wings so nicely.

Thursday, August 17, 2006
Long-horn Caterpillar
The hound and I were wandering down
De La Vina Street today. Only a few steps into our walk I noticed a beautiful
orange flower growing by the edge of the sidewalk.
When I leaned down to examine it I found a pleasant surprise!
Of course when I saw this guy I suspected that my
beautiful flower was actually a weed. But that's ok.
On one small plant there were two of these large Monarch
caterpillars.
Monarchs dine almost exclusively on Milkweed.
It gives them a lovely defense against predators. You see
since the Milkweed is poisonous (and tastes terrible to
almost anything with the apparent exception of Monarch
caterpillars) It makes the caterpillars and resulting
butterflies poisonous and taste terrible to just about
anything that would try to make a snack of them.
As I was sitting on the sidewalk, watching the caterpillar it
was amazing how many people went by (looking at me like I was crazy)
and missed such an interesting sight. Of course I
guess it is only interesting to crazy photographers like me
and other fortunate people with child-like curiosity.