The Circle of Life

On the first day of summer I photographed a bunny at the bottom of my field before it ran into the shrubs and raspberry bushes.

Bunny I had good intentions of loving.

I left the area for five minutes or so to get my tripod and walk back up with my parents.

When we walked back up to the area, my dad spotted a hawk crouched in the mowed field.

The hawk hiding something beneath it.

I immediately thought, “The bunny!”

I walked back over to the area, without phasing the hawk one bit.

Then, it bent it’s head down taking a tear out of the sweet little bunny!

It spread it's wings.

 

Took flight

And carried the bunny away.

Bunny hair.

I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault the bunny got eaten.

But then again, I couldn’t have intervened. That, in itself, is disrespectful to nature.

Time and time again, growing up with animals, it’s just part of nature and the “circle of life.”

Photos of the Days

I realized I labeled the photo of the day for May 5, 2010 as May 6. So the picture of my cute kitten is actually for May 5. Here are my photos of the last few days – which I would upload sooner if it wasn’t for dial-up Internet that doesn’t allow me to upload photos, or even send emails these days.

May 6, 2010

 

Water droplet hanging off an orchid.

May 7, 2010

Spinning around at the Amherst fair.

May 8, 2010

 

Chocolate cake - well I guess it's really a tart.

May 9, 2010

Mom's beautiful and delicious bread.

May 10, 2010

Two male ducks. A macro lens would have made this photo more interesting, as I should keep distance from animals.

Photo of the Day – Pink Orchid

January 9, 2010

Meet the orchid Cattleya – the subject today’s photo of the day.

Cattleya orchid in the sun.

I’m not an orchid fanatic or anything, but I did write an essay on orchids for a science class in high school. The assignment was to feature any organism on a regional, national, and global scale and take an important account of their environment. Here’s a an excerpt from the essay.

Orchids (Orchidaceae) are perennial plants cherished for their beautiful and sometimes fragrant three-petal flowers. They are commonly associated with originating from the tropics of Central and South America, Africa, Madagascar, Asia, New Guinea, and Australia, but are native to temperate zones in North America and Europe. For hundreds of years explorers and horticulturists have journeyed all over the world to discover orchids, mesmerized by their intricate beauty, gathering them from mysterious jungles, striving to recreate their natural habitats and use hybridization in order to grow these wondrous organisms. Because many orchids, such as the Cypripedium acaule of New England, the Encyclia tampensa of Florida, and the Vanilla planifolia of Mexico are native to such diverse regions of the world, they must adapt to their environment as well as their pollinators in distinct ways.

Orchids are monocots, flowering plants that have a single leaf (cotyledon) in the seed and floral parts in compounds of three. Monocots are generally herbaceous as opposed to trees, which do not lack wood. There is one germinating pore for their pollen grains. Other examples of monocots are all grasses, rice, wheat, and corn, lilies, and the vascular, palm trees.

Not too shabby for a kid.