Sunrise 91: Ault Park (Summer Flower Garden, Ailanthus Webworm Moth)

Pretty flowers.

A “cosmo” pointing up toward the sky.

Beautiful macro shot of a red/orange/yellow summer flower.

This morning I felt it was definitely a time to recollect and enjoy a cool morning summer in the park. The last two mornings I skipped the sunrise. I tell myself it was mostly due to overcast conditions but in reality I think there are several different reasons. I almost feel as though these late sunrises, happening at 7:05am, are no longer a “challenge”! The 6:15am sunrises, which came up before rush hour and when the city was still asleep, had more of an air of secrecy to them. I’m either going to have to find a new challenge (like getting to the park by a half hour before sunrise, and then leaving as soon as the sun crests) or search for more motivation. Time will tell! It’s just depressing to me how deep into the morning my routine is taking me if I wish to take my time at the overlook or in the gardens. That’s life, though, I suppose.

The atmosphere this morning was cloudy so I took the time to check out the flower gardens. By this time, late into the summer, the bushes and flowers have grown up healthy and lush. There is an opening that reveals a grassy aisle into the center of the flower garden that is in the center lawn. The last time I really explored this area, the ground was bare and I was left wondering “hmm, what’s going to grow here?”. The black-eyed-susans, cosmos, and other flowers are now towering over my head and full of beetles, bumblebees, spiders, and ladybugs. I was surprised to find how thick the isolation felt once I walked into the flower garden. On several occasions, while I was stooped in observation taking pictures of the flowers, a jogger would glide by only a few feet from me but on the other side of the flower wall. It reminded me of just how private a forest or meadow can become during the late summer months. I need some time to rebalance and sunrise in the garden was a perfect fit :). I got a bit carried away with the pictures, mostly just having fun with the color and finding all the insect life hidden under the pedals.

This is actually a deer in the forest behind our place. I tried feeding her carrots, but she was only interested in green foliage. Next time I’ll bring broccoli.

The sunrise was boring! Off to the garden.

These first few are darker, I was lucky to get any kind of macro focus. A deep orange flower that I think is a “cosmo”

The centerpiece hidden inside the flower garden.

For the rest of the pictures of flowers and insects, click to continue if you’re on the front page:

A cosmo bud!

This has to be a black eyed susan, or some other sunflower variant.

The three black eyed susans, with a creepin’ beetle checking out the scene.

He wasn’t too impressed with my up-close observations.

I found it interesting that the yellow flowers were full of yellow beetles.

A withering black eyed susan.

Macro shot of the cosmo flower.

A cosmo bud about to explode open.

A yellow cosmo

Hah. Just a strange scene with purple and orange and green.

A beautiful black eyed susan.

This was a spider of considerable size. If I could catch a grasshopper I’d feed it, but not this morning.

Not sure what these are, but they were in all different variations of the same orange/red color.

Yellow, Orange, Red

Small flowers

Creepin’ out onto the pavement.

As I was about to leave, the sun shone down on the benches at the end of the lawn

I love the color variation here.

I wanted to see what time it was, so I pointed the camera down and took a picture. I liked the picture, so I took a more careful version of it. And here it is. Mostly gray and black, with the red water bottle.

Blue skies over Ault Park

A local moth! I know it’s a moth because I looked it up one other time. It hangs out with the beetles, but don’t let the appearance fool you. The orange and white pattern is a telltale sign of the Ailanthus Webworm! Interestingly enough, this moth is native to Florida and the tropical Americas. The Cincinnati climate is actually a humid sub-tropic so I find it fascinating to find this moth all around these parts. It reminds me of just how lush and wet our little micro-climate is. I think that I’ve actually seen these caterpillars hanging around, it might even be the one that I found on Sunrise 24 although all I can find on the Internet is a single picture that only resembles it…

Leaving the park.