Swallowtail Jig

The lantana bush was surrounded by three huge black and yellow swallowtail butterflies, all fluttering about. These two landed next to each other and were still long enough for a photo. Remind me to let you watch that James Bond movie in which the opening sequence has butterfly puppets, but one of them end up being a weapon! It'll make sense once you see it.

Best 4th of July ever...

So check this out: I've been scuba diving, I've swam and boated through a swath of saltwaters. But it wasn't until I was wading with mitchell did I see my first shark. A sleek and slender 3' light grey one, got stranded for a minute on his belly in the shallow water. Mitchell and I watched as he thrashed about. I said in a relaxed, loud voice, "Hey, shark!" No one was close enough to hear me. Then he swam away. We got out of the water after that. It was as beautiful as it was mystifying. We also saw a white crab, little hermit crabs, and collected a couple sand dollars and a moon shell, but the shark was the coolest. Nature likes to seduce before she eats us. The shark was probably more frightened (or curious) about us, than we were of it. We know all about sharks thanks to books, Animal Planet, and Shark Week. Too bad the shark doesn't get cable; he could watch "Human Week." We share this planet. It's a beautiful place.