Midsummer harvest season is here, with sun’s
strong rays taking on a subtle golden tint. Cicadas emerge from the ground and
climb into the trees. Their song removes the harsher edges from reality, and
gives us momentary peace. Newly hatched skinks brighten the landscape with
their neon blue tails. Temporarily
stalled in an attempt to swallow a ground spider whole, one little skink
stayed in the same place long enough for me to take a blurry shot before it whisked its prey away and finished the meal elsewhere. Documented also is a
juvenile joro spider, Nephila clavata, whose web graced the garden for too
short a time. The joro spiders have become rare in this area, perhaps because
of climate change, and this little female was not able to catch enough food to
sustain her energy. However, nectar-filled flowers abound, and butterflies are
caught mingling with light and twilight in mysterious ways. Shade plants often
keep their secrets to themselves, except when they produce edible delicacies
such as Zingiber mioga flower buds with their invigorating gingery flavor, giving us an appetite despite the sultry heat.
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| cabbage butterfly |
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| Papilio protenor (Spangle) doing abstract art |
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| underside of Pale Grass Blue wings (Pseudozizeeria maha) |
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| Young skink trying to swallow a burrowing spider |
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| Zinziber mioga, Japanese ginger buds |
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| Papilio xuthus (regular swallowtail) at rest for the night |
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| Juvenile Nephila clavata, evanescent |
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| glimpse of the topside of a Pale Grass Blue |
