Keith and the Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

This is one of my ArtRage paintings: Keith and the Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

I know, it's still a long ways from excellence, but I am working on my 10,000 hours.
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Today, we rode out motorcycles through the rain to the Nature Center at Metrobeach, had a delightful walk (the sun came out!), and after walking, went into the nature center.  The naturalist allowed us to watch two monarch caterpillars pupating into chrysalises. She showed us eggs and tiny babies and chrysalises ready to turn into monarchs and we saw an adult she had just released outside.  Among the other things we saw were juvenile black-crowned night herons, several of them, swans and ducks and flowers and lots of frogs and toads. I painted this during dinner.

To see the image better (small details of life cycle), click on the image to enlarge it.

A Walk at Metrobeach Nature Center and Happy St. Paddy's!

We went for an hour-long walk (but were there several hours) at
Detroit Metrobeach yesterday. It was cloudy most of the day but the
sun came out near the end of our walk. We also saw three owls but
they did not photograph well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! If you haven't seen my card yet, click here.

Click here for more pix from this walk.

Project Budburst

I have just joined Project Budbust, A National Phenology Field Campaign for Citizen Scientists after reading about it over at Lake Loop. Go to one of those links to read more about it. I've been keeping phenological data for over 40 years, so was thrilled to see this. I have only signed up for the dandelion and the lilac so far, but intend to sign up for more locations and more flowers, hopefully.

Phenology is the study of the times that natural events occur, such as flowering and fruiting. Laying eggs, giving birth. Emerging from hibernation. This study focuses on common, easily identifiable plants.

Geese and Goslings

Yep, I took this this spring. The goslings all look like geese now. And essentially are. Click image to view larger.