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Posts tagged as:
VT
See below. Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves of specific types of milkweed plants; the eggs hatch into larvae/caterpillars which then feed on the milkweed, storing enough energy to take them through the pupal/chrysalis stage of development. Milkweed plants are toxic to birds and mammals, and the butterflies store those poisonous compounds in their exoskeletons, making them distasteful if not outright lethal to likely predators.
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The family that found this chrysalis two weeks earlier checked regularly on its progress. Maybe that was why they were so excited about sharing the news with me – a total stranger who happened to be walking past their driveway – that the butterfly had just emerged. This beautiful monarch (check out the blue in the wings) was slowly working its way to the top of the rock; still orienting itself, it seemed, to its new form. Or maybe it was checking out the upcoming flight plan and was a little shocked – a 2500 mile migration to Mexico ?? Really ???
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For the more scientifically oriented among us, these are stratocumulus clouds.
For the literary types among us:
“You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.” (Henry David Thoreau)
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Serendipity (or more accurately – the faith therein) is a significant part of my photographic repertoire. It’s a simple, elegant and useful tool, and a guidepost along the lines of Yogi Berra’s adage about baseball, ” 90% of this game is half mental..” My longer trips into the North Country, for instance, generally begin with only the vaguest of destinations in mind, and the wandering that follows, the heart and soul of the trip, will rely on circumstance and luck for image making. Call it the Yogi Berra/William Least Heat Moon school of photography.
There are places that call me back, though, like this vista. As on my first visit, however, the light and the time of day were not the best – for color images. Rendered in black and white, though, it becomes an entirely different (and pleasing) story. Two years later this same scene popped up in VT Life magazine as a color photograph, a truly spectacular shot. And that’s how it sometimes goes with photography.
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