After school today, Kieran and I returned to Oakland’s lovely Lakeside Garden. We spent a lot of time in the Japanese Garden with its waterfall, then wandered again through the Palmetum, where we had so much fun on our previous visit.
Kieran spots a red-eared slider.
Kieran scouts the pond for the turtle.
A yellow jacket comes in for a landing.
Yellow jacket drinking.
Yellow jackets drinking from the edge of the pond.
Sceliphron caementarium, a yellow-and-black mud dauber.
A fox squirrel.
Fox squirrel gets a drink.
A skipper type butterfly.
Japanese maple.
Redwood.
An ishi doro.
A giant ishi doro at the entrance to the Japanese Garden.
Nearby is the palmetum, a real treat.
The ubiquitous Argentine ant, Iridomyrmex humilis, on a leaf.
Red hot poker flower. Look closely and you’ll see the spots of Diabrotica undecimpunctata, a spotted cucumber beetle, within the flower.
A spiderweb in the palm forest.
Another wasp in the leaves.
A honeybee visiting an angel’s trumpet flower.
Steven E. F. Brown 