My backyard is filled with butterflies — like swirls of churning butter, they are being carried from flower to shrub by the Santa Ana winds.
Painted Lady on Butterfly Bush
I learned from my friend Amy that these winged beauties are called Painted Ladies and that they're headed for their winter homes in Baja.
Hovering in a Ficus tree
You can't tell from these pictures, but our Brazilian Sky Flower Vine is blanketed with them!
So grateful, to see with my very own eyes the miracle of a butterfly migration…
I still can’t believe how colorful it is where you are!! I keep staring and staring at all that blue and purple. It turns out that the trees have no leaves on them here for six and a half months! So looking at your pictures is like peering into a whole other dimension. 🙂
(The times we’ve been in Santa Barbara for Christmas we’ve always gone to look at the migrating butterflies. So cool!)
Six and a half months of skeleton trees and wooly gray skies? Oy, Rose. I don’t know how you do it. Tell you what: I’ll try to keep your world colorful by sharing pictures of my garden, here and on Facebook.
I’m hoping we can see the Monarchs in the Santa Barbara area this winter. Do you visit them in Goleta, maybe?
More pictures would be awesome. 🙂 And yes, we’ve only been there a couple times in winter, but it’s always Goleta.
Beautiful…
Robin, I would love to see what you could come up with, picture-wise. You’re fast, and your skill with different lenses is amazing.
Shhh, don’t tell, but I dragged my knee scooter over the threshold into the backyard–teetering on my crutches all the while. It was slapstick comedy, I’ll tell you what! I couldn’t get as close to the action as I would’ve liked, nor could I hold myself/the camera still for very long. But you know how it goes: I was bound and determined to get a few decent shots. 🙂
It would be so much fun to try. Your shots here are amazing and so lush…worth all the teetering (especially since you didn’t hurt yourself)!