Something was fluttering clumsily near my tent. That evening in Canyonlands was too cold for sustained insect flight, but nevertheless it repeatedly tried to lift off.
I was focusing on a claret cup when I noticed several beetles near the base of the stamens. They were moderately active inside the flower, but they did not venture onto the pistil, nor did I see any moving between flowers--they seemed content to stay deep in the flower.
I was treated to a colorful sunrise and later I noticed a marshy meadow bright with green, yellow, orange and red willows. Colors were born by stems, not leaves, so the effect was delicate and diaphanous against wind piled banks of snow.
When I approached this group of three (see the photo) too closely, they flew off. But they did not fly away, but at me, passing within a foot of my head. So I was buzzed by a gang of small but cheeky birds.
The large lampposts, 30 feet tall and a foot in diameter, had been completely covered with moths. Some of the moths had left as the day brightened, but several hundred remained, moribund.
In chaparral environments, manzanitas grow so densely that they form shrub thickets. The mature bark of manzanitas peels naturally, leaving a deep red surface as smooth as marble.
It was about 20 feet above the ground, in the crown of a crabapple tree. Approximately five sheets of comb were fused together, assembled so that one main branch and several smaller branches pierced them.
A large damselfly hung placidly from a forsythia branch in my back yard, so I approached within three feet to get a good view. On the next day it had moved to a spirea, and once again it was tolerant of my close approach.
