The Strange Side of Nature

By Jim | Published June 9, 2016

Yesterday morning, I spent most of the morning photographing wildflowers in the area. The first stop was the “new” natural prairie in the area, Snowball Hill Prairie. I’ll put out another blog post on this natural gem, but today’s post features one of the many wildflowers that is now blooming there, the thistle: As I […]

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Friends of Purple

By Jim | Published September 14, 2015

WARNING: If you have arachniphobia, you might want to skip today’s post! I mentioned in yesterday’s post (“Purple on the Prairie”) that the purple thistle flowers had some critters calling the thistles “home”. In today’s post, I feature those residents, the crab spiders of the prairie. Crab spiders are small spiders that resemble little crabs, […]

Posted in 2015, Blog, Insect Photography, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Purple on the Prairie

By Jim | Published September 13, 2015

Yesterday morning, I made an early morning hike around the nearby natural prairie. I had a great time and saw quite a lot of things happening. First, let me say that yesterday was an ideal day to hike the prairie around sunrise time … our temperatures have dropped dramatically over the past 24 hours (it […]

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Eye Candy

By Jim | Published October 8, 2014

While hiking the nearby prairie meadow the other morning, I came upon a wonderful subject for using the focus-stacking technique, a thistle in full bloom. With all the nooks and crannies of this lovely wildflower, focus-stacking was a good choice to capture most all of the flower in focus, while still keeping the background out-of-focus. […]

Posted in 2014, Blog, focus stacking, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Wooly Thistle

By Jim | Published September 11, 2014

One of my favorite wildflowers of the Colorado Rockies is the Wooly Thistle. Here are a few of my favorite images I captured during my stay on Mount Evans this summer: Close to sunset, I captured this backlit image: Here is a closeup of the “wool”: And even with all the sharp spines, the American […]

Posted in 2014, Blog, Landscape Photography, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Thistle

By Jim | Published July 24, 2014

I’m without internet for a few days as I work on a short photo project. In the meantime, I have scheduled new posts to publish every morning during my short absence. So be sure to check the new posts on my blog at this link: Show-Me Nature Photography blog A few thistle plants were found […]

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The Awesome Thistle

By Jim | Published October 1, 2013

During last month’s prairie hikes, I ran across quite a few thistle plants in various stages of blooming. I believe these are Bull Thistles (Cirsium vulgare). When in full bloom, they are quite striking: And here are a couple that were just starting to bloom: I always love the brightly colored blooms! Photography Equipment used: […]

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Handle With Care!

By Jim | Published August 31, 2013

Today I’m featuring a common wildflower that is found along the Mount Evans Highway in Colorado. This prickly little plant is called the Wooly Thistle, and I think you can readily see why it is so named: You certainly wouldn’t want to grab this plant with the bare hands! I don’t have a lot of […]

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Busy As A Bee

By Jim | Published January 16, 2012

While hiking some meadows in the Maroon Bells area of Colorado, I came upon a nice patch of thistles, and several Bumble Bees that were busy nectar hunting:         These images were made in mid-September. The nighttime temperatures were downright cold, but you could count on seeing these guys busy at work […]

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Tiger Swallowtail

By Jim | Published August 31, 2010

Today I’m featuring another visitor I found at the Prairie Meadow the other day. As I was leaving the meadow, This large Tiger Swallowtail (Pterourus glaucus) flew in and fluttered about the thistles that are currently blooming. I just love seeing/photographing these beauties … so large and so colorful!    

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