Too Beautiful to Dissect

I have spent $234 on dragonfly books the last couple of months. My first round of purchases included Wild Guide: Dragonflies, The Beginner's Guide to Dragonflies, and A Dazzle of Dragonflies. The Wild Guide book [$20] includes drawings, not photographs; it is a simple thing—a kid in middle school could understand it—but well written and interesting. At the beginning of spring, I didn't know much about dragonfly life cycles or behavior, and this book has helped me understand what I am observing down at the water.

The tiny A Beginner's Guide [$9] is full of color photos and descriptions. Maps make it hard to misidentify a species because I can say, "Whoa, Florida isn't colored green on the map. This specimen must be something else." It is another simple book, but as I am trying to get a handle on what I'm seeing, it too has been helpful.

A Dazzle of Dragonflies [$40] includes not only photos but also scans. The authors took laptop computers and flatbed scanners into the swamps, netted dragonflies, cooled them on ice, posed them on the glass, and scanned them. This book is helpful with identification, although the accompanying website, Digital Dragonflies, has a better selection of species. What I like best about Dazzle is the chapter on dragonfly mythology. The dragonfly, for example, is a servant of the devil for Europeans but an advanced spiritual being for Native Americans. The writing in this work isn't the best, but I am happy to add it to my collection.

None of the first three books I purchased included any information about four-spotted pennants, however. This species of dragonfly frustrates me because I see so many color variations when I am at Lake Pamela. Unlike blue dashers or Eastern pondhawks, which both have distinctive gender colors, the four-spotted pennants do not; moreover, they seem to color morph as they mature more dramatically than any other dragonfly I have seen in the area. So I bought Dragonflies through Binoculars and Dragonflies of North America, hoping for some help with this particular species.

Dragonflies through Binoculars [$30] is an expanded A Beginner's Guide—more species, longer descriptions. Concerning four-spotted pennants, it says that this species is the only North American dragonfly "with entirely white stigmas [small marking at the front of the front wings]" and that "females darken more slowly than males, retain white facial spots." The note about white stigmas helps me confirm that I am observing four-spotted pennants—not misidentifying some other species—but the "slow darkening" contradicts the scan of a female at Digital Dragonflies, which shows coloring different from that of males. So I can't tell if this specimen below, for example, is a female [does have the white facial spots] or a male [typical male coloring]:



Dragonflies of North America [$125] is advanced scholarship, years in the making. This thick, heavy hardback is a biologist's book, not targeted for the lay person. It is as dense as it is beautiful. The authors call the four-spotted pennant "a very handsome species," an opinion about looks not typical of most of the descriptions of other dragonflies, an opinion that indicates the authors' own appreciation for the species. This work claims that the face of a four-spotted pennant is "black and white," apparently for both males and females, contradicting the information in Dragonflies through Binoculars.

I have learned a little about dragonfly genitalia, so I know to look for a male's "package." Often, though, I don't get the "package" in the shot, so I can't confirm gender that way.

I could probably find a bio professor who would go out and net some specimens with me and then tutor me on dragonfly gender, but I would feel that I was mixing too much science with the art. Plus, gender identification might include dissection, and although I have no strong complaints about the process, I personally don't want to cut up one of the little guys myself. So I'm just going to share some new pictures, gender be damned:






I can't explain my fondness for this species. Maybe it's that I alone know that Lake Pamela is overrun with them, so they are my personal little world that no one else on the planet appreciates. The mature males perch on plants in the water, battling each other over the lake. The others—females or immatures, I give up—hang from the dead branches at the shore, as though they are Coliseum spectators watching gladiator battles below. They are not the easiest dragonfly species to shoot—blue dashers, for example, will let me get so close that I can't focus the 300 mm lens and have to back up--but these pennants do tolerate my presence well enough. They're not flashy colored but wonderful nonetheless in their Darth Vader beauty.

Department Chaos

Last Wednesday morning, our dean announced by email an unscheduled department meeting at 3 p.m. "Unscheduled" is not Connie's typical style; the red envelope icon attached to the message inspired most people to stick around despite the late hour. No fishing expedition to the department office could discover what prompted the need for us to gather.

At the meeting, Connie explained that she had accepted a vice-president position at the downtown center—it used to be a "campus" but they no longer pollute the building with faculty or students. Her news stunned everyone in the room, as she would be gone by July 1. Most of us knew that she was upwardly mobile as an administrator, but to leave in the middle of the semester with various projects halfway completed came as a big surprise.

I am saddened to see her leave, but we did expect her eventual move up. Although I have enjoyed her as my boss, I can work without her presence, as I am low maintenance and have the security of tenure. Unfortunately, not all of my colleagues could function effectively after the news.

On the way to my car, I bumped into Libby. Tears were dripping past the frames of her gigantic sunglasses. Connie had hired her, so Libby was losing her mentor. I could empathize. When my first dean retired, I bawled my eyes out after the big party, convinced that my life at the college couldn't continue without his presence. I have always been a real asset around here, though, something soon obvious to the new dean who replaced him. And life did in fact continue, as I tried to convince Libby it would.

I wondered if Libby's tears were an expression of loss or evidence of her anxiety about an uncertain future. She is full-time temporary, her contract renewed each semester. With Connie, the renewal wasn't in question; with an unknown interim, who knows? I'm sure that concerns about paying the mortgage also influenced the flood of emotion. The impression she makes on the interim dean—and on the permanent leader the college will eventually hire—will have way more importance than the impression any of us tenured folk make.

I remember the anxieties of pre-tenured life all too well, so Libby's behavior was understandable. Other people did not have such good excuses for their poor reactions. One tenured colleague was hysterical with grief, threatening to quit if some moron replaced Connie. Quit? A tenured position in this grim academic market? Good grief, girl, get a grip! What are you going to do, waitress as you did during graduate school? The reality is that the deans on our campus are quite good, that the deans for our department in particular—in the 21 years of my experience—have been above average at least, and usually brilliant. Our provost isn't going to saddle us with a moron when ours is the one department with agreed-upon assessment protocols already in place, the one department that teaches classes every degree-seeking student must take.

Another tenured colleague approached me the day after the meeting. She had convinced herself that she alone was the reason Connie accepted the new position. "If I hadn't ..." launched her detailed explanation. Incredulous, I asked, "Do you really think Connie thinks about you enough to base career decisions on your actions alone?" Apparently, this narcissist did think so.

Unlike regime changes in the past, Connie has not lined up a temporary successor. Instead, she asked us what we thought she should do. Oh, the temptation of power and how to get it! At the meeting, one relative newbie nominated an inappropriate choice, whom no one seconded [whether the nominee was relieved or disappointed or both, I don't know]. Almost everyone believes that it's time to be chief, not a little Indian any longer, with qualifications: "I'd make a great dean but don't have the high boredom threshold to attend all of those meetings," "I could do the job but don't want to put in the long hours on campus," or "I have the experience but don't want to listen to all of those student complaints."

A senior colleague's flunky wrote a petition announcing our unanimous support of the senior colleague, but no one would sign it. Some of us emailed a potential candidate on another campus, tempting the poor guy with flattery to give up his great, relatively easy life as a teacher to enter the tedium of management [because none of us were willing to do it], but he intelligently declined.

Everyone is reacting as if a parent has died and left us to starve as orphans, not as if we are rational adult human beings. I keep saying to people, "It doesn't matter who sits in that office because you already have tenure. We need someone who will protect the 4-monthers like Libby," but my advice falls on deaf ears. I have imagined my worst nightmare getting the job. I don't think he'd give up one year early his cushy, quasi-administrative, token faculty post downtown where he can star-worship the college president, but even if he did, I realized that I—and everyone else in the department—would survive. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Something Old, Something New

A week ago Sunday, I chose Leu Gardens for my photo outing. Alberto, the first tropical storm of 2006, was pinwheeling out in the Gulf, so I knew I could count on cloudy skies, which always give me the best lighting for insect pictures. In one part of the garden, the curators have built an artificial stream bed filled with rocks, ornamental grasses lining the banks. Despite the absence of water, I can always find dragonflies there, usually very common ones, like blue dashers. This weekend a female Eastern pondhawk, another species pretty easy to spot here in Central Florida, was perching in the grass:


She kept hassling this guy [girl?]:


I had seen one of these—I now know to call it a "pin-tailed pondhawk" [Erythemis plebeja]—at Lake Como, but only once. When the Eastern pondhawk wasn't buzzing him aggressively, I managed to get a few nice shots:




From a distance, he looked like a big black bug, but up close I could see the beautiful bronze tones on the frons, the front part of the head. I was so happy with these pictures that I finally took advantage of my Bugguide.net account and braved an upload. According to the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, pin-tailed pondhawks are not a "confirmed" species for Orange County, so I also decided to contact that group as well and make a small contribution to their collection of knowledge. The email reads something like this:

From: sparky.lightbulb@_____cc.edu>
To: boris.kondratieff@colostate.edu
Date: June 19, 2006 4:04 PM
Subject: Pin-tailed pondhawk sighting in Orange County, Florida

Dear Dr. Kondratieff:

I recently shot [with a camera, not a rifle] a dragonfly I didn't recognize. Scanning what I believe are reasonably reputable websites [Odonata Central, Digital Dragonflies, Bugguide.net], I discovered that it is a pin-tailed pondhawk [pictures attached]. A little more online research brought me to Dragonflies and Damselflies of the United States, where I learned that there are no confirmed sightings of this species in Orange County, Florida. I just wanted to let you know that I have seen this species of dragonfly at Lake Como Park and Harry P. Leu Gardens, both in Orange County.

I am not a nutcase who just wants her county to be blue or turquoise on the pin-tailed pondhawk Florida map. I am a professor [of English, alas], and know the importance of careful research. You can trust me even though I have never pithed a frog! I just want to help out dragonfly science in whatever small way I can.

Sincerely,
Sparky Lightbulb
Professor of English

A Simple Formula

A couple of weeks ago, I received a student email that read something like this:

From: vita.villanova@_____cc.edu>
To: sparky.lightbulb@_____cc.edu
Date: May 16, 2006 2:54 PM
Subject: Late assignment

I need you to just approve "heart disease" as the topic for my research paper. I don't have time to pitch nine different topics and explain my interest in them because my grandmother just died. Not completing that long form won't hurt my grade, will it?

Vita

An email like this makes my usually easy-going nature as inflexible as a brick wall. The likelihood that Grandma has died is slim, the possibility that the student is hoping to recycle a research essay from a previous health class high. The self-importance evident in the student's belief that she gets to determine how to complete and count an assignment lights my anger. I responded diplomatically, though: "I'm sorry for your loss, but I cannot treat you any differently than the other 24 people in class. You must complete the form before I will approve a topic for your research essay." In a case like this, I might give the student a break on the late penalty in case Grandma really has passed, but I will make it clear that it is for that one assignment—and only if I get it within a day or two.

This student chose to employ a formula that meant my inflexibility was the only possible outcome:

Take stance as the Center of the Universe
+ Fabricate a ridiculous excuse
+ Indicate that course policies should be the student's prerogative
= An angry professor without sympathy

I too faced many brick walls as a student, but instead of lying about a dead grandmother, I plugged into a surprisingly effective formula that got me one exception after another:

Acknowledge the power of the person granting the favor
+ Admit one's own inferiority
+ Make a reasonable request
= An exception to a usually hard-and-fast rule

This people-smart formula worked in all kinds of situations. For a professor who prided himself on never giving an extension:

Dr. Conner, I hate to trouble you when you have so many important things to do, but I am a butt-head who has mismanaged her time and needs the weekend to finish the paper due today. I promise it will be under your door before you arrive on Monday, and I will accept whatever late penalty you give it for my lack of punctuality.

Received = 3 scowls, 1 threat that I shouldn't expect better than a C, 1 grade of A when he returned the paper

For the cashiers in the bursar's office:

You have been so helpful and kind about accepting my tuition in little chunks all summer, but I am sick with worry that I won't have it all paid before Labor Day. Is there any way possible I can start fall classes even if I still owe about $200?

Received = Paperwork shuffle that kept the bursar from discovering the "gentlewomen's agreement" we had arranged

I guess my advice would be that if someone can't be a good student [and good students, by the way, get their work done even when Grandma has really died], then that person should at least learn the method for manipulating people more effectively!

Do You Get What You Pay For?

In the early 80s, after the bursar's office credited my generous financial aid and scholarship package to the bill, I still owed roughly $2,000 for fall/winter terms and another $1,500 for spring. Since my parents didn't help with college tuition, I worked all summer at a theme park, eating a bag of corn chips and drinking a Coke during my shift because that was all my lunch budget allowed. On a day off, I would cash my paycheck and drive to campus to turn over the majority of my minimum-wage earnings. The women in the bursar's office, who saw me deliver my paltry contribution week after week, always fixed it so I could begin classes even if I owed a couple hundred dollars in early September. Then, during the school year, I worked every weekend as well as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break, hoping to reduce my spring term bill to zero dollars by the time the academic year ended.

I have always been a big believer in "you get what you pay for." But is this true concerning higher education? I went to an expensive, private liberal arts college. But did I get a better education there than I would have if I had attended the local community college, which today charges $67 per credit hour, or about $1,600 for a fall and spring semester combined? My undergraduate education was way more expensive than what the community college or state university was charging at the time, but did I get way more learning?

Immediately after graduation, I had the opportunity to look closely at the schooling option I hadn't chosen. I went to work at the local community college, which employs me still. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the brilliance of the teachers. I could have taken much cheaper classes with caring, creative, smart people my first two years if I hadn't dismissed the place as Grade 13!

Sure, some of the faculty here are worthless burnouts, but they are a very small minority, and we had them at the expensive school too. For example, my senior year as an undergrad I took a course on Renaissance art. I knew Dr. Lemon's reputation: everyone thought he was a snooze-o-rama. But this was Renaissance art: Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael. Course material would still be great to study, or so I believed. Oh, was I wrong! Dr. Lemon read dusty, yellowed lecture notes—"jokes" penciled in the margins—and put me to sleep in the dark room lit only by the slide projector. If he's still teaching, I bet students skewer him on RateMyProfessor.

If the classroom education is the same—there are both brilliant teachers and worthless burnouts at both places—then why do community colleges have such a bad reputation? I will never forget the depiction of Bunker Hill Community College in Good Will Hunting. Despite Robin Williams' lively antics as Dr. Maguire, professor of psychology at BHCC, the students in his dumpy classroom slump in their seats, twirl their hair, and contribute zombie-like grunts to discussion. Compare that picture to the MIT students, willing to attempt difficult mathematical challenges their professor leaves on a hallway chalkboard for fun. They sit at the edge of their seats, their classroom as brightly lit as their minds, competing for their professor's attention, applauding his performance at the end of class.

I am also reminded of the constant ribbing Eric, "E," of Entourage gets whenever he mentions that he at least attempted a 4-year degree. On one episode, the boys are at a showing of Gary Busey's art. After Eric corrects Johnny Drama's bad "interpretation" of a piece of sculpture, Drama gets defensive. Eric explains his limited expertise by saying, "I took art history in college." Drama retorts, "Community college, loser."

So is the rotten reputation that community colleges have deserved? Do they offer the McDonald's Quarter Pounder equivalent of education while pricey 4-year schools serve up filet mignon instruction?

I've been teaching long enough to know that the additional money my alma mater charged wasn't going toward better classrooms or teacher salaries. In one building, for example, I always checked the seat before sitting down. The roof leaked, and I could expect a puddle. When I applied for graduate school at the same institution, I had to interview with one of the faculty who taught in the program. I remember her shock when she learned that I made as much money as she did. That I taught 5 classes to her 3 and had 25 students per section to her 7 - 15 didn't temper her disapproval.

The differences in price allow the four-year college students more frequent and higher profile guest speakers, opportunities to watch and participate in sports, free movies on weekend evenings, museums and performing arts centers, and health services. As an undergrad, I attended lectures by James Dickey and Maya Angelou; here, we get no-name poets with print runs of 3,000 copies. If someone needs a Tylenol or bandaid at my community college, she can't walk to the Health Center for an evaluation by a real nurse or doctor. Instead, she'll have to pay the overpriced charge for a two-pill package at the bookstore or wrap toilet paper around the wound.

So differences in price contribute to differences in extracurricular opportunities or fringe benefits, not necessarily differences in the quality of instruction. So is the community college a savory—whoops, savvy—financial move, or is it where where we feed those with less discerning intellectual palates?

I don't think that community college students are stupider, that's for sure. We do get people, as a result of the "open door" policy [anyone with a high school diploma or GED has the ticket to enter], who do not have the IQ to handle the work, and no amount of remediation will help. But that's also true of universities who admit intellectually unqualified football players and drugged out children of rich alumni. Many students in my classes are just as capable of handling the work as, say, I was, and if our research folks aren't finagling the numbers, we have proof: our graduates do better their junior year [as evidenced by their GPAs] at the university than the "native" students who started there as freshmen. I have met many talented students here, some of whom are more brilliant writers, better artists, and deeper thinkers than I. They could have handled classes at an ivy league school—if they had gone to one.

I see one difference between community college and university students. Many community college students are not intellectually inferior; they are instead time management dumb. They are the people who couldn't get it together to register for their SATs, or study for them, or take them on the scheduled Saturday, or take them a second time to raise their score. They neglected to request applications to schools that made admissions decisions months in advance of the start of a new academic year. They never bothered to fill out the necessary financial aid forms. And even if they did get accepted somewhere prestigious and were awarded a scholarship, they self-sabotaged themselves, mismanaging time with a boy/girlfriend resulting in a pregnancy that caused them to decline the university offer to raise a child.

Maybe their life experiences contributed to such low self-esteem that they didn't think they deserved a chance at a more prestigious institution than the local cc. Maybe they didn't have family models who "knew the ropes" and could help them through the labyrinth of paperwork and deadlines. Whatever the obstacle, they wasted those precious months of their senior year at high school when they needed to get envelopes in the mail. Their time management stupidity has forced them to attend an institution that will accept them, arrange a short-term loan, and register them all on the same day, if, of course, they have the stamina to wait in lines. If they have postponed a return to school, the community college allows them to continue their education close to the job that they now must work to pay the bills.

Community college students do get their money's worth. They get the same great instruction at a place willing to work with their time-management problems. They get their "beef" [a McDonald's Quarter Pounder is a damn fine thing to eat], missing out on the filet mignon because they neglected to make a reservation at the "restaurant" that serves it.

And what about me? Was I a damn fool to spend all of that money on tuition to a private school? No, I don't believe so. The smaller classes meant that faculty looked out for me and my intellectual development. They were asking me my sophomore year where I planned to attend graduate school and offering to write letters of recommendation. They had a real interest in me and my friends, one that I wish I could have in my own students. But there are just too many of them, as well as too many state guidelines I have to meet, too many state or department competency tests I have to prepare the students for, that I can't offer quality time for them as individuals. They get only my and my colleague's quality instruction in the classroom, not the "fine dining" experience a 4-year school can offer.

So, yes, you do get what you pay for.

Communicating with Online Students

For the last seven years, I have taught online classes as part of my load. In my department, I pioneered education in cyberspace, being the first person to offer freshman composition and the research class via the internet. When I agreed to design an online course, my big fear was that I would have no students left at the end of the semester; the reality has been that I keep 16 - 19 of the 25 people who initially register—this high number even though they must take and pass the same department-graded, do-or-die final exam or write the same long research essay required of classroom students. Although I am considered the department expert for online instruction, I am still solving problems inherent in "distance ed." Thousands of emails later, I feel that I have finally mastered communicating with online students.

One big problem to communication via email is that neither the sender nor the recipient can see the facial expression of the other. From an email message alone, I cannot accurately gauge whether or not a student has fabricated Grandma's death. I don't have the person's eyes to study, posture or body language to translate. And online students sometimes have a hard time reading me as well. Sometimes they cannot determine, say, my level of enthusiasm [or lack thereof] for an assignment they have submitted. In a physical classroom, I might say, "This is not too bad." My friendly face communicates the math: "not," a negative, plus "bad," a second negative, equals a positive, or my general happiness with the work.

If, however, I write "This is not too bad" as part of an end comment on an assignment I am returning via email, insecure students will read the sentence this way: "This is not TOO bad"—or, "It's bad but I have seen worse"—when I did not intend to communicate that message. So in email, I now avoid phrases that I still use in the classroom where my physical presence helps students interpret my meaning. In email, I am straightforward and cold: "I liked the way you handled X, but you must revise Y before you submit the final draft" or "The content is just what I was looking for, but you will need to work on Z if you want to pass the department-graded exam at the end of the semester."

Straightforwardness, though, can get me in trouble in an email as well. When I meet classes in person, I can easily determine who has done the work and who hasn't. Physical evidence abounds: Does Student X have a textbook? Is it marked in a way that indicates that he read it? Did Student Y attend class the day we discussed the PowerPoint presentation? Did I see her ask her seatmate for notes to copy because she wasn't here? Did Student Z take notes the day we discussed the very important directions for the final draft, or was he surreptitiously trying to complete homework for another class?

Online students are equally transparent—the quality of their assignments indicates how much of the preparatory work they did before attempting the piece I will evaluate—but I do not call them on it as I would a classroom student. To Student Z above, I can say, "You could have earned a higher grade on this if you had put aside the math homework the day I went over the directions." But I cannot say to an online student, "You obviously did not view the PowerPoint I posted before attempting this essay," because the student will retort, "I did too!" While she feigns indignation and hurt that I would accuse her of such a thing, I can offer no physical evidence that she is lying.

So I have learned to phrase my suspicions like this: "I wish that you had paid better attention to the reading assignment [or PowerPoint presentation, or student samples, etc.] and tried harder to meet the expectations communicated there, for then you would have earned a higher grade." I know the student didn't do the reading assignment, but I don't accuse her of that lapse because I can't prove it. The student will often reply, "Gosh, I guess I didn't read X very carefully. Next time I will pay better attention." The student and I both know the translation: "Gosh, I didn't do the reading. Next time I will actually view the student samples you so thoughtfully provided." But we avoid unsubstantiated accusations and retorts zinging through cyberspace.

The I-know-you-didn't-do-the-required-preparation-but-I-will-only-accuse-you-of-not-doing-it-carefully rebuke works well with A and B students who are testing how little they can get away with in an online course. Next time, they will likely get their act together and do acceptable work. C, D, and F students, however, want to make appointments to see me. "I don't understand X," their email will begin, "so I was hoping you could better explain it to me in person." They had X explained at the minimum in assigned pages in the textbook, a PowerPoint presentation spelling out what I wanted, samples of A+ student work or a practice quiz with answers.

At the appointment, these students will have no interest in learning anything about X; they will instead whine that a work, health, family, financial, or relationship responsibility keeps them from doing a good job in my class—as though they alone in the world have to juggle so many challenges. They will hope that I will be sympathetic and reduce my expectations of them. C, D, and F students aren't that bright to begin with; they don't realize that their physical presence in my office—their eyes, their facial expressions, their posture—will give me way more information than the static words in an email, and that I will have less sympathy, be less inclined to give them a break, than I would if they had just admitted their laziness and promised to do the work for the next assignment.

I have finally figured out how to handle these folks as well. I always begin the return email with my office hours and location. Then I add something like this: "To better help you understand X, I will need to see how you prepared for the evaluative assignment. When you come to the meeting, bring both of your textbooks, all of the posted handouts I advised you to print and read with a highlighter, and all of the exercises I assigned. Put stars or question marks by anything that you don't understand."

Since employing this strategy, I have found that not one of them comes to the meeting. I, of course, know why. If they bought the textbooks [and that's a BIG if], they don't want to bother marking them up as though they did in fact prepare beforehand for the assignment or quiz they bombed. And if they were to read them in preparation for our in-person meeting, they would realize that the information wasn't difficult to understand. I don't teach rocket science! Once they start printing the handouts, just a glance would indicate that all of the problems I marked in their essays were addressed in readily available materials. And if they start the assigned exercises, they realize that only a moron could still mess up a quiz on the material after doing so much preparatory work.

To establish good communication in an online course, I now follow these simple rules:

• Avoid expressions that can be interpreted differently depending on what word is stressed
• Accuse the students of not preparing carefully enough, even when their work indicates that they didn't prepare at all
• Insist that the students bring all materials and preparatory assignments, marked in a way that shows what/where they didn't understand, to any in-person meeting

Now I'm sure that since I feel confident in my ability to communicate with online students, one of them will throw me a curve to demonstrate how little I really know. But I'm here with the bat, though, my eye on the ball.

Little World, no. 2

When I took Bug down to the lake this afternoon, I noticed that city workers had mowed. Cut grass is a good thing; I can more easily see—and thus avoid—a pile of dog poop that one of my inconsiderate neighbors has neglected to pick up, and in the early mornings my shoes won't get so wet with dew. This mowing, however, will probably wipe out the last of the fleabane, a wildflower/weed that was at its height early in the spring. Yesterday, small patches were still popping out blooms, and I managed to photograph a cassius blue butterfly enjoying nectar from the flowers:


I'm sure that like the clover, fleabane has appeared every spring. This is the first year that I've noticed it, though. That's one important benefit of having a camera: I am always looking for photo opportunities, so I notice my environment a lot more. Finding a new location is also an opportunity to learn things, since I want to know what to call the flora and fauna I spy there.

When the fleabane was in full bloom, it made a thick circle around the lake. All I had to do was sit with the sun at my back to capture a wide variety of visitors who came, like this skipper butterfly:



Also snacking on the nectar were drone and hoverflies:



And bees of various breeds came to work in the "fields":



I will miss the fleabane, but the recent rains have inspired the Spanish needle to flourish, and that ugly wildflower/weed is always good for attracting all kinds of bugs.

A special note: Today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. Whoo-hoo! I managed to commit to project that no one but me cares about for a whole year. I had hoped to write at least 100 posts, but I only made it to 79, 3 of which are still saved as unfinished "drafts."