Planets

If you look closely, and use some imagination, you can see the rings of Saturn going from upper left to lower right on the planet to the right. Meanwhile, Venus is just too bright to show that it is actually a crescent. Through my telescope I could see the cresent of Venus and the rings of Saturn but my camera just couldn't cope with the telescope and could not quite capture the same scene with it's own telephoto lens.

Oh, they were in the west just after sunset and were quite close together on July 1, 2007.

Skipper on Milkweed

Morning Crow

Lily

This Michigan Lily (Lilium michiganense) usually blooms in mid-July but was looking beautiful in the wild part of Hamilton/Burlington's Royal Botanical Garden yesterday and other reports had it blooming the day before by the Grand River near Paris, Ontario.

Global Warming Effects

This Blue Vervain is the 64th species of plant that I have found blooming earlier than normal in the season this year. Like for many others, my earliest previous record for it's blooming is a week later. I have been keeping records for 26 years on a casual basis with more emphasis taken during the last 10 years. I assume that it is global warming that is responsible for so many plants blooming earlier and earlier and then blooming longer into the fall and early winter. I now have records of plants blooming during every month of the year here in Ontario, Canada.