WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is color. The goal is to select photos that feature one color prominently in the frame. What a fun challenge!

For this specific challenge, I decided to share photos I took in a single day, while visiting the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. There sure is a lot of color there if you look closely.

Remember you can click on each photo to see a larger view. If you like what you see, I’d love for you to subscribe to this blog so you can see my new photos as I post them.

My first photo is of a busy bee on bright yellow flowers. I’ll share more photos of bees on these flowers in an upcoming post in the next week or so, so stay tuned.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Color - yellow flowers and bee
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color – yellow flowers and bee

I wanted to photograph this protea pin cushion up close and I used the purple flowers as a contrasting background. The bright blue sky helps too. If you like protea pin cushion flowers, you can view more here.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Color - orange protea pin cushion flower
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color – orange protea pin cushion flower

Besides lilac blooms, I’m not sure there’s anything more beautiful than wisteria blooms. If you like wisteria, I’ll be posting more photos of it in the next week or two. Remember to subscribe to this blog if you haven’t already.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Color - purple wisteria
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color – purple wisteria

If you follow this post, you just saw the photo below this morning, but I wanted to share it with the people who do the WordPress weekly photo challenge. I really like how the pink flowers stand out next to this amazing giant owl butterfly.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Color - pink flowers and giant owl butterfly
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color – pink flowers and giant owl butterfly

I used the last photo in a post earlier this week but I thought it’d fit perfectly here too. These fluffy yellow blooms belong to a very large tree that was covered with thousands of them.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Color - yellow fluffy blooms
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Color – yellow fluffy blooms

I hope you enjoyed my photo picks for this colorful theme!

Butterflies: the giant owl (Caligo memnon)

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

Yesterday I shared the photo of a paper kite butterfly, the first good photo I took while at Butterfly Jungle at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park a few days ago. Today I’m sharing the second picture: it’s a giant owl, and once you see the pattern on its wings, you’ll understand why.

The giant owl butterfly is very large and the inside of its wings display a beautiful light metallic blue. Unfortunately the giant owl butterflies I saw that day all stood at rest with their wings closed. It was impossible to catch them in flight because of the amount of people in the enclosure.

Here’s a nice side angle of the giant owl butterfly, featuring some big owl eyes! Remember you can click on the photo to see a larger view.

Giant owl butterfly (Caligo memnon)
Giant owl butterfly (Caligo memnon)

Butterflies: the paper kite (Idea Leuconoe)

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I had the opportunity to visit the Butterfly Jungle at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park a couple of days ago. It features thousands of exotic butterflies in one single enclosure, about 14 different species of them. I didn’t see all of them during my visit and managed to take photos of just a few. If you’ve ever followed a butterfly for a little while, you know they don’t like to like to sit still for too long. When they do, they often close their wings so you can’t see their beautiful patterns on the inside of their wings.

I have a few photos to share so I thought I’d showcase each type of butterfly in individual posts. I hope you enjoy them.

Remember you can click on the photo below for a larger view.

This is the paper kite butterfly, formally known as the Idea Leuconoe. It’s a rather large butterfly and its beautiful patterns are similar on the inside and outside of its wings. This is the only photo I managed to take where none of his body parts were blurry. Busy guy!

I can’t complain though. He was sitting in a great spot, with lots of bright colors all around him, which makes for a nice picture. What do you think?

Paper kite butterfly (Idea Leuconoe)
Paper kite butterfly (Idea Leuconoe)

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Textures

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is texture. What a fun theme! Here’s a nice sample of different textures you can find in nature. Make sure you click on each image for a larger view.

I took this first photo yesterday while at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. These very fluffy yellow blooms belong to a very tall tree that was just covered with them.

Cee's fun foto challenge - texture of yellow puffy blooms
Cee’s fun foto challenge – texture of yellow puffy blooms

I took the next photo at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park yesterday also. There have been a lot of baby elephants born there in the past few years. Even at a young age, elephants have quite a wrinkled skin, don’t they?

Cee's fun foto challenge - texture of elephant skin
Cee’s fun foto challenge – texture of elephant skin

Have you ever touched a sea jelly? That’s quite an interesting texture. Very… jelly like!

Cee's fun foto challenge - texture of sea jellies
Cee’s fun foto challenge – texture of sea jellies

How about a sea star? If you’ve ever touched one, you know if it feels as rough as sandpaper. I also love the color patterns on this specific sea star.

Cee's fun foto challenge - texture of a sea star
Cee’s fun foto challenge – texture of a sea star

My last pick for this theme is frost. Have you ever walked on frosted grass and realized how crisp it felt?

Cee's fun foto challenge - texture of frost on grass
Cee’s fun foto challenge – texture of frost on grass

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Distant

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and outdoor photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is distant.

I have a 12x optical zoom on the camera I take with me most often. It doesn’t allow me to zoom very far but it’s usually good enough to capture what I can see with the naked eye. For this “distant” theme, I decided to focus on animals that fly (but are sitting still at the time), since they are the ones I mostly have to zoom on to capture on camera. Here are a few recent shots, and a couple of older ones. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

I took the first photo this past weekend at Dos Picos County Park, not far from San Diego, California. This red-tailed hawk was sitting at the top of a tall sycamore tree and being very noisy, so I thought he deserved to have his picture taken. We have a lot of red-tailed hawks around and it’s always a treat to watch the male and female hunt for food for their young together.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant red tailed hawk
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant red tailed hawk

I took the next photo last week at the San Diego Zoo. I believe this blue heron is a local freeloader since they water basin was mostly occupied by reptiles – turtles and crocodiles. This big guy was eyeing the little fish swimming in the water and slowly walking towards them for a taste.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant blue heron
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant blue heron

This little guy below is a Stellar jay bird. Isn’t he beautiful? I took his photo in Idyllwild, California, where there are a lot of these birds. What’s interesting is, we only live two hours away from Idyllwild and we have regular blue jays here, but no Stellar jay birds.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant Stellar jay bird
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant Stellar jay bird

I love this last photo of a blue dragonfly. We have a lot of orange/red dragonflies here and I still have to take a few photos of them, but this is the only blue dragonfly I’ve seen. I feel lucky to have been able to capture it with my camera, since dragonflies can fly for hours without taking a break.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant blue dragonfly
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant blue dragonfly

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