BLACK IS THE COLOUR...

I went out today, loaded down with lenses, to photograph wildlife. For me, that means insects and a possible lizard. What finally dawned on me today is that there is always a wind here. It is barely perceptible until you point a camera at a blossom only to find it is nodding gently.

Ten years ago, the herb garden buzzed with honey bees that landed on my arms and hands as I was working in it. (I was never stung.) There are no more. At other times the herb garden looked as if confetti was falling over it as hundreds of tiny butterflies in many colours flitted about above it -- powder blue, pale green, yellow, white, orange -- There are no more.

It isn't as if everybody sprayed everything with poisonous chemicals because only one person, who doesn't live in the area, sprays his olive trees against olive fly. We are all against medicini. Nobody uses it. Bottles with sugared water are hung in the trees so the flies can drown themselves.

It's climate change. I do not know if it is man made or natural but it is here. Spring is later and colder every year. Autumns are a bit warmer but by then the growing season is over. We've lost at least two growing weeks in the past six years. We've lost any number of insects. There are even fewer wasps.

My choice today was the small, fuzzy orange bumble bee, cabbage white and a speckled orange butterflies, a lizard, ants and a large blue-black bumble bee. They used to bop about in the dozens but not now. Oh, and there were more hummingbird moths than usual and I have many fine blurs of those.

So here is a miraculous shot of the black bumbler, life size. He actually spent a microsecond in one place. He is not in fine focus, no, and there is a perfect one of an orange butterfly on lavender, but all in all, I think more people have seen that type of butterfly than they have the very large and glistening bumble bees. I am told he is a carpenter bee.

Everything has gone into hiding now because clouds have rolled in and thunder is once again rumbling above us. Butterfly