Nectar robbing, backyard edition
These orange crossvine flowers bring all the bees to the yard, but the big carpenter bees don’t fit inside. So they poke holes at the base of the flowers to drink the nectar, and then the smaller bees and butterflies follow along.
This is called nectar robbing, because the insects get the nectar without providing any pollination benefit for the plant - and thanks to @celestialphotography for telling me this behavior has a name. :)
Cochise County, Arizona, April 2025.
Backyard flowers.
Cochise County Arizona, April 2025.
Ocotillo (strangest, thorniest and best of plants).
Cochise County, Arizona, April 2025.
Found in the desert: Kip and friends
These things were all together, with some broken glass and a backstory I don’t know, on a dirt road near Tombstone. I brought the wood block home, and now somebody in the house calls it The Curse of Kip and puts it back on my desk whenever I find a spot for it.
The other side of the wood block features a horseshoe - ends pointed down for that kind of luck - some miniature playing cards, and a rattlesnake rattle. Anyway, Kip says hi.
Cochise County, Arizona, April 2025.
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