Beautiful Morning

Bernie and I once again made our way to the river to have a look at how high it is.

The water level has dropped by about three or four feet, which is good news. The poor flooded golf course showed how much the water had receded ... leaving the bad news of dead grass peeking out. It's also starting to smell kind of disgusting from the dead vegetation. Alas, it will be worse once all those fish trapped in there start to stink. (And then again, maybe not -- there are quite a few raccoons and coyotes in the area.)

We walked on the levee in back of the golf course, and were treated to the sight of this gorgeous tiger swallowtail butterfly. I snapped that first picture facing the sun and was thrilled to see the light illuminating the wings. I snapped several photos of this creature, and most of them were stunning. The butterfly must have been fresh from his chrysalis, because there wasn't a single tear or tatter on his wings.

In the shade under the cottonwood trees, a shaft of light peeked in and lit up something else -- a locust sapling in bloom. The intense greens and the softened shadows caught my fancy. I have this thing for locust trees, although I don't really remember why. Maybe because back East, they would bloom around the time of my birthday.

One of the pictures I took was of a bird that was very elusive -- we'd just catch a glimpse of color as we looked up into the trees, and couldn't really see many details. Suddenly it flew into the tree right above me, and I was able to snap a picture of the branch. When I uploaded it to my computer, with a little tweaking of contrast and color, we found that the bird was the beautiful Bullock's Oriole. My picture isn't good enough to post, but that link will take you to a phenomenal birding site!

Just to show you how perfect that butterfly was, I've included this photo. My back was to the sun when I took this shot; you can see a subtle difference in color from the first.

I think this insect captivated us for nearly ten minutes before cruising off in the direction of the golf course. I've never before in my life had a chance to examine such a perfect tiger swallowtail for so long.