I'm not sure if painting various bits of the house counts as going to the gym or not. Mostly trim, uh, I don't know how many reps of paint-brush motions.
This (Sunday) afternoon, Cicero appeared outside with a dragonfly in his mouth (henceforth he shall be known as Cicero Dragonfly Slayer). The dragonfly (probably at Common Whitetail,
Plathemis lydia) was buzzing to get out of feline jaws, which of course, was Very Exciting for the feline involved. I called him a Wicked Thing and he dropped it. This is the second dragonfly Cicero has caught in nine days.(Mark thought he'd caught a humming bird at first). This one, alas, had a large hole in the middle of its abdomen -- I'm not sure if Cicero put the hole in there, or if a bird pecked at it or what.
I put it, still quivering, on our phlox, thinking that while it wasn't a bug that a dragonfly might eat, that maybe a flower would seem more familiar than a table or the inside of a cat. And then Mark and I went on to scrape and paint various parts of trim on our house.
I came back a few hours later, and the poor thing was still hanging onto the phlox flowers and being batted about by the breeze. I unhooked it from the flowers and it latched onto my finger in what I thought was some sort of rigor mortis death-grip, but later realized was animal force. I can't imagine how the insect was managing to respire, and it did seem rather confused.
So... I seized the opportunity to take macro-lens photographs of a semi-live dragonfly that was unable to fly away. I did flick tiny drops of water over it in the hopes of reviving it, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to make it through the night on the branch of the camellia. While my camera is not exactly the best device for astro-photography, it shines when it comes to photographing bugs.
This (Sunday) afternoon, Cicero appeared outside with a dragonfly in his mouth (henceforth he shall be known as Cicero Dragonfly Slayer). The dragonfly (probably at Common Whitetail, Plathemis lydia) was buzzing to get out of feline jaws, which of course, was Very Exciting for the feline involved. I called him a Wicked Thing and he dropped it. This is the second dragonfly Cicero has caught in nine days.(Mark thought he'd caught a humming bird at first). This one, alas, had a large hole in the middle of its abdomen -- I'm not sure if Cicero put the hole in there, or if a bird pecked at it or what. 
I put it, still quivering, on our phlox, thinking that while it wasn't a bug that a dragonfly might eat, that maybe a flower would seem more familiar than a table or the inside of a cat. And then Mark and I went on to scrape and paint various parts of trim on our house.
I came back a few hours later, and the poor thing was still hanging onto the phlox flowers and being batted about by the breeze. I unhooked it from the flowers and it latched onto my finger in what I thought was some sort of rigor mortis death-grip, but later realized was animal force. I can't imagine how the insect was managing to respire, and it did seem rather confused.
So... I seized the opportunity to take macro-lens photographs of a semi-live dragonfly that was unable to fly away. I did flick tiny drops of water over it in the hopes of reviving it, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to make it through the night on the branch of the camellia. While my camera is not exactly the best device for astro-photography, it shines when it comes to photographing bugs.
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