— June is Pride month. To celebrate all LGBTQIA+ community and couple that with my love for nature, I decided to do this Pride in Nature post. It combines my passion for nature (e.g., wildlife and flowers) with the rainbow colors found in nature.
Yesterday, in between rain showers, I went for a brief walk in my favorite neighborhood park, Copperfield Nature Trail, less than two miles (3.2 km) from home. Although it is a very short trail (probably 2-3 miles, or 3.2-4.8 km, if you do the entire stretch), the biodiversity in the trail is astounding. Except for the rose photo from our garden featured above, all other photos were taken on that trail. Three of the remaining photos were done yesterday.
The rose photo above is one of many in our front garden. Any time it rains, I can always count on water droplets in those roses. You can see one on the edge of a petal on the left-hand side and another near the center of the rose.
One of the first things I noticed yesterday was this tiny orange mushroom. Photographing it was a bit harder than I’d anticipated. It was so short that I had to put my camera entirely on the ground to capture that perspective in see below. Because of the rains, there were several mushrooms in the area.
As for the prickly pear cactus flower, that was not hard at all. As a bonus, I also got an insect in the flower. I haven’t been able to identify the insect yet. There are several cacti along the hiking trail, particularly near the north end of the park.
For the green in the rainbow flag, I chose a budding fern leaf. I’ve always been fascinated by the curves in those leaves. Once again, I lucked out because I was able to find one with a spider. Because there is a large pond in the middle of the trail, ferns are easy to spot there.
Blue is represented here by Widow’s Tears. Similar to a Spiderwort, Widow’s Tears (or Slender Dayflower) flowers from May through October and is a perennial. It grows in clumps to about 1 foot (30 cm) in height. Like Spiderworts, this is a dayflower because its flowers only last a day.
Finally, you see a purple or violet larkspur. This perennial is very slender stalk and blooms from April through July. You can also find it in white and blue colors.
Click on the small images to see them in full size.
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