Flowers around Angel Fire

In my previous blog post, I talked about how we saw a great batch of wildflowers growing alongside the road.  Jeff knows me well enough to just pull over to the side, because he knows I want to photograph them.  After looking at these images, can you blame me?

Blooming Thistle

A thistle is a pretty unforgiving plant if you get to close to it, so the secret to photographing it is a zoom lens!  I’m not certain if it’s just the elevation here that allows this particular variety of thistle to thrive, but I just love the bright pink color!

Lacey White

At first glance, this flower sort of looks like Queen’s Anne Lace, but I know it isn’t.  Perhaps a variety of one??  I just know that I really like how it looks so nice against the green of the leaves around it!

Mountain Coneflowers and Thistle

Isn’t this lovely?  I would love to be able to get some wildflowers to grow like this in my garden, but somehow I think it would require a lot of effort……kind of ironic since they are just happily growing here in the wild!

Butterfly on Thistle

This image is a real treat!  Just as I was about to turn away and return to the Jeep, I thought I’d snap just a few more images.  Then, I noticed this butterfly fluttering madly on this thistle.  I just kept my shutter pressed so that I shot a number of images.  I hoped that at least one of them would capture the butterfly with its wings open, and I got lucky!

Rocky Mountain Penstamon

I happened to capture this image of a single penstamon growing alongside the road (different location than the above images).  I shot it just to capture it, but later I noticed small fields of them all around.  There will probably be more images of this bloom, when we come across a field in a location where we can easily stop!

Gone to Seed

I’m assuming this is a dandelion that has gone to seed.  I really love it and feel so lucky when I’m able to photograph one when it’s still absolutely perfect.  I actually almost tripped over this one.  It was just there, all alone, in the middle of a sort of very rough dirt road.

Indian Paintbrush

This flower is another of my favorites, probably due to the color!  I don’t know that I saw many of them when I lived in the Midwest, but out here, they are a fairly common wildflower!

Enjoy!