Nature

Cactus Flowers - With Bees!

The cactus in my back yard flowers at this time of year. They are quite spectacular, but they don’t last long: from dawn to about 10.00am usually. Then that’s it - the flower doesn’t appear again. “The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.” (Deckard. Also Lao Tzu.) This year though, there were so many (well over 100) that the cactus has been a riot of flowers for over a week now. Ten to 20 a day.

The honey bees have gone wild over these rare delicacies too. They must give off a scent that they like because they are all over the flowers and are going nuts.

Some pictures of the cactus and flowers below. Also a couple of videos of bees going wild. Shot with the iPhone XS. For reference, the cactus is about 11-12 feel tall.

Whale Watching in Monterey

It’s taken a while for me to get to this, but here goes.

In May I visited Monterey California, to do some whale watching. Well, we did see one whale, so I suppose technically I can’t complain. The photo below is of a humpback. Also we saw a pod of Risso’s Dolphins leaping out of the water. The scars on this one’s body are thought to result agressive interactions with other dolphins in the pod.

Also, a picture of some Harbor Seals at Point Lobos.