On this date in 2012, I was… I don’t remember where I was, to be honest, but I was taking photos of… I don’t know what these are. I just happened to like this little patch of white wildflowers, and I think it was off the back of the property at the old place – other photos from that date indicate that I was home that day, anyway.
But you know? This date in my personal history wasn’t a particularly productive one, so we don’t have much to show for it – it had to happen sometime. Just for the sake of it, I’m doubling up on the next year to be featured, which is 2017, because I got bupkiss to show otherwise.
Three years ago, I was encouraging another butterfly bush to grow in the yard, another Black Knight variety, because of just subjects like this: an unidentified crab spider that would lie in wait for whatever pollinator of the right size to come along. In that respect, it’s distinctly similar to this year, because I have several photos of a crab spider about this same size to feature a little later on, even though it’s on an entirely different butterfly bush; the one from 2017 didn’t winter well, and I made a mistake in the spring that pretty much spelled its death (a tragic mowing accident.)
That day, I also spotted, only for the second (and so far the last) time, a curious type of beetle.
I should be keeping a close eye out for another of these, because they seem to like sweet potato plants and we have them again flanking the front door. This is a golden tortoise beetle (Charidotella sexpunctata,) which show a distinctive brilliant gold color and sheen – at least when unthreatened. When danger is detected, they immediately switch to a bright orange color, reminiscent of lady beetles, and they consider nature photographers leaning in close with macro lenses to be ‘danger’ – I know, right? It is in transition here, just starting to turn orange, so my goal is to get some photos of the nice gold hue, which may be challenging, especially given how rarely I see them.
And yes, they really are completely transparent around the edges, because they’re wanton little things. But without it, they wouldn’t see much, certainly not looming nature photographers, so I suppose it serves a non-lewd purpose too, or at least that’s what they try to tell their mothers. I don’t judge, myself, but you’d think beetles could find more respectable ways to behave…