Walking to work this morning I saw a profusion of butterflies, flurries of them. From a distance they looked like leaves carried on the breeze, but as they fluttered past (so fast!) it was obvious they were on a mission. I think they were “painted ladies”:http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/27/special_reports/science_technology/12_31_263_26_05.txt flying their hearts out toward the desert and its “new flowers”:http://www.california-desert.org/flower_main.html.
Happy spring, everyone!
I’ve been seeing those butterflies for a few days now. Last week I was in Vegas, took a side trip to Death Valley, and saw both an incredible number of wildflowers and their corresponding butterflies. I’ll post some wildflower pictures in the next few days.
No butterflies here yet, except for at Meijer Gardens. We’ve gone back into cool, rainy and gray (after sunny and 73 yesterday) but there HAVE been robins and I saw my first flowers of the year next to a warm air vent sticking out of one of the buildings at school. When I visit California now it astonishes me how flowers are a year-round thing. Daffodils are starting to push up. It will be nice when they bloom. And crocuses.
I was at UCSD today and they were all over, clouds of them, dipping and swaying and dancing fiercely. They made my trip so much more lovely than I expected. As I drove past the swathes of yellow flowers lining the freeway and Gilman Drive’s canyon I thought, “Nice fast food for them!”