On a lazy afternoon

It's a well-known fact that old men like to sit and watch the world go by. Now that I have attained that honorable appellation myself, I can attest to its truth. In fact, many of you know it too, because for some time now, I have been sharing bits of my world with all of you.  

This post is one that I had fun producing.  I took the pictures as I sat on our Waitakere Gardens balcony in the sun on a fall day in New Zealand and observed.  There was a lot of activity below me. For some reason, it was a day (Wednesday, March 22, 2023) when lots of families visited residents. There was constant coming and going and the shouts of children being children.  

I soon discovered that there was a lot of activity up in the Nikau palms that ring our roundabout as well.  Activity of another sort. The European honey bees, Apis mellifera, from the hives in our very own gardens, were present, and zipping around at great speed. I got excited.   

Being old, I have come to rely on what I like to call my bionics. My hearing aids are one example.

I have also come to think of my camera as a kind of extension of my eyes. When I saw what was happening in the palms, I grabbed my camera, and started snapping. With its help, I was able to reach out and pull that fruiting palm closer to me. Let's get started. 

This was my view from my balcony.  I am looking at the flowers that are obvious in the tree closest to me.  

This view shows the distance from our balcony to the inflorescence.  It was taken from our roundabout. I have placed a yellow rectangle above our balcony. You can imagine me sitting there on our two-seater and resting my camera on the railing.  

And this next one shows Jeanne looking toward the sunrise.  You can see how close we are to the palm in question. (For this picture, I went up to the third floor of The Palms. A good place to catch a sunrise shot too.) 
 

I've got the camera zoomed in. Here comes a bee now. Soon we're going to go a lot closer. The camera can not only bring bees closer to me, it can stop them in mid-air. 

You can even see the pollen basket (corbicula) on its leg if you look carefully enough. 

This bee is in the shadows, but it makes for a nice silhouette.  And notice the second bee to its left that is stationary and slightly more out of focus. Still, you can see a hint of its wing.  

 

I have just a few more.  They're a little fuzzy, but quite close.

And now, let's look at the best ones of the afternoon.

I like this one because you can see the condition of its wings.  I think this might be an older bee.  

Is it any wonder that the honey that is produced here at Waitakere Gardens is so good?  The bees have innumerable and diverse sources of sweetness to draw upon. 

I know this has been a long post, but I have just two more shots I'd like you to see and mull over.  

The first one is another of the palms in the drive.  The top portion is called the spathe, which splits along one side and the inflorescence emerges. 

Now take a look at a super close-up of an individual flower within the inflorescence.  I love how its structure looks somewhat similar.  

Thanks for sharing a seat with me this afternoon.  Didn't the sun feel good?     -djf

I never was a fan. Elvis started his career before I was old enough to care about his music and by the time I was, other types of music and groups had my attention and admiration.  

However, here in New Zealand, and especially in our retirement community, we have found that Elvis is much loved.  His songs make up a percentage of every singalong that Jeanne attends.  And if there is a party some evening, and someone decides to get up and sing a song for the rest of us, chances are about even that it will be a song that Elvis made famous. 

Recently, there was an Elvis festival in Cranwell Park. That's about a five minute walk from our village. It was a beautiful day and I took a few shots as I walked through the festival grounds.  

Take a look. This is the memorial in Cranwell Park.  Sometime ago, in a previous post, I showed you this memorial when someone had placed flowers on it.  Now, that's fan devotion.   

Here is the entrance.  It's a very small gathering.

There was also a car show.  Mostly left-hand drive models. 

This is the very first 'Elvis' of the day. I think they had five of them scheduled. He had a rather unfortunate start. (I thought so anyway.)

The announcer gave him a great intro.  Started quiet and then, as he talked, he got louder and more excited, the music that was playing crescendoed, and the announcer shouted, 

"Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Elvis,"

and nothing happened.  Where was Elvis?  He finally made it to the stage after about a minute. 

Fortunately, the crowd was very forgiving and he was greeted warmly, once he made it on-stage. 

He didn't attempt to do Elvis's accent at all.  The crowd was hungry for his songs and he got right to it.  

I was wondering if the various impersonators got together before the show and agreed on what songs each would do, so there wouldn't be excessive overlap of some songs. I thought this because I noticed he wasn't doing any of the really big hits. However, I didn't stay very long at all and didn't hear his full performance.  

The weather stayed perfect that day.  I'm sure everyone attending, performing, showing cars, or in any way associated with the festival was pleased.   

Henderson celebrated the "King," once again.    -djf

 

Tyrannosaurus rex, Mr. and Mrs.

Good morning, 

Let's suppose that you have just found yourself mysteriously transported from your home to the train station in Henderson .  You'd look up and see this poster. 

(That happens to be Lion Rock at Piha.)  

You look around a little more.  Hmm, you've somehow acquired a trolley on your journey.   

You notice, as you stand there, waiting for the train to show up, (what else would you be doing at a train station?) that there appears to be a bit of something organic down on the concrete, and that there seems to be some activity around it. 

And then you look very closely indeed.  

"Hey you, ant on the right. Quit messing around!  Get off the load."  

As you watch, you hear the rumble of the arriving train.  

You step aboard (what else are you going to do at a train station) and look around. Hmmm, it's  empty this morning.   

You realize that you are on the 9:10 a.m. from Henderson, and if you were to disembark after the automated voice announces Grafton, (in about 40 minutes) and then climb the hill outside that station, you would soon be rewarded with the sight of the Auckland War Museum in the distance. 

(I think the name is somewhat misleading. In fact, the museum has devoted the majority of it's floorspace to displays that have nothing to do with conflicts.  It's a wonderful and interesting place.)  

And then, if you made your way to its south entrance, and passed through it into the large Atrium, which offers a circle of exceedingly comfortable couches, a children's play area, the café and the gift store, you could stand (or sit) and admire Mr. and Mrs. T-rex.  They however, don't stand on ceremony (it's actually a raised platform) and prefer to be called Peter and Barbara.

You may wonder how we know which is which of the pair. It is a fact that male T-rexes are believed to have been smaller than the female of the species and it is true that Peter is the smaller of the two by about a meter. But the fact that Barbara was found with fossilized eggs inside her that was a dead giveaway as to her sex.  

Peter came to us from the Lance Formation in Wyoming and Barbara hails from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. They're Yanks!  What do you know? 

You're totally surprised to find yourself here, but you're glad you are. You plan to not worry about getting home again. You'll just enjoy the exhibition. The future will work itself out.  

That's Barbara in the foreground. 

Peter is on the left.  

Peter

Barbara

Have you wondered if T-rexes ever walked around with their mouths shut? I ask because I've never seen a picture or display that showed one with its mouth shut. 

(Except in Gary Larson cartoons.) 

They appear to have large nostrils so breathing closed-mouthed shouldn't have been an issue. 

What about after they had just had a nice big dinner? They must have taken a break from roaring and snapping at some point.

I think it's just our expectations that cause them all to be positioned as angry, hungry, just-about-to-swallow-you-whole workaholics.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkpcQBRh6Y0

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Note from your tour guide: (me)

I loved dinosaurs as a kid.  If I had had a chance to see these two back then, I would have been thrilled beyond words. It's still quite a kick.  

Since we are Aucklanders, we have cards that allow us to visit the museum for free.  I hope that very soon, Jeanne will decide she'd like to meet the Dino-Americans and come with me to see them. We'd have lunch and stay as long as we'd like, admiring Mr. and Mrs. Tyrannosaurus rex. 

And yes, those pronouns are correct.   -djf

  

Cuphea ignea

Let's talk about my title. I know you're wondering.  

It's the binomial name (Genus, species) for an interesting little flower that appears here and there in our gardens. The first word comes from Greek, and the second from Latin, with which I'm a bit more familiar.  Ignea means fiery.  It's been well named. 

Its common names are more imaginative and describe it for English speakers.  It's a flowering, bushy bit of greenery that's called the 'cigarette plant' here, and 'cigar plant' and 'firecracker plant' in other places. Its origins have been traced to Mexico.  

It's got shiny green leaves and tiny, sort of flattened cylindrical red flowers with white and black on the end. The plant is in the lower right quadrant of this photo.  It's hard to see the flowers. They average about 1/2 to 5/8 of an inch (1.27 cm. to 1.58 cm.) in length. 

Here are some closer views. 

Jeanne and I had taken a walk over to the gardens beyond the Vines today just before lunch. As we wandered, Jeanne spotted some fellow gardeners up ahead. We saw Odette first and then John, who was a little farther on, and preparing a plot for planting. Jeanne and Odette started discussing gardening matters and I tagged along.  

At one point, I asked Odette the name of today's post subject and she filled me in.  She went on to tell me about the very unusual manner in which bees obtain nectar from this particular flower.  It astounded me.  I had never heard of such a thing. I didn't even know that bees could do that. 

I decided then to get my camera and take some pictures.  I hadn't noticed any bees around but intended to look, as Odette had suggested, at the flowers, for the tell-tale signs that bees had taken nectar from them.  

I had no sooner started snapping, when a couple of bees arrived.  We all went to work in earnest. The bees were busily harvesting and I was surprised. I got some really good pictures that showed exactly what Odette predicted.  I had no idea.  

Here's a bee now flying in. 

And the other.

In these next photos, we'll be able to see the amazing method of nectar removal that Odette told me about. 

The bee settles on a flower, 

but instead of going to the open end of the flower and reaching in, it makes its way to the stem end, 

and begins its work. 

The next picture is a close-up of the one just above.  It is chewing, or cutting its way in.  

And here is the close-up of the close-up. 

This is the 'after' picture; after, that is, the bee has opened up a hole at the base of the flower to reach the nectar. 

 

and a close-up of the after picture,

and a close-up of the close-up.  What I want you to notice is how the bee has torn out the side of the flower.  

Odette had told me that every flower the bees had visited would be marked with a hole, and we've seen proof of that today.  

I hope that you've all enjoyed seeing this as much as I enjoyed preparing it. 

And thank you, Odette.   

Before we're done with this post though, let's take a look at a few more shots.  

This is a close-up of the end of a flower.

 

And here is a close-up taken from the end of the flower, looking inside.

Finally, a wasp working from the end of the flower.

As you can tell, I'm very fond of macros. (Close-up photos) 

See you next week for something completely different.   -djf