Orchid of the day and mystery hawk

by JustPlainDon on Jan.18, 2011,under Background, Orchids

A favorite of mine has started to bloom and the flower should be fully opened either later this afternoon or tomorrow. It is Brassocattleya Mary Agnes Chase. It is a hybrid between Brassavola digbyana and Cattleya Vesper. For me it is a bit of the best of both flowers. It has the large pink from the C. Vesper and the frilled lip from the B. digbyana. The only thing that I'm not crazy about is the disproportionately large lip compared to the other petals and sepals. I cut one bloom and took it to work to give to a friend who loaned me her copy of the season 1 box set of Fringe (Walter is my hero).

Orchids just seem to be putting up buds left and right. It will not be long and my Angraecum sesquipedale will bloom for the first time. The nectar tube has straightened downward and the bud is getting really fat. This species was one that has some significance to Darwin's theory of evolution. I'll see if I can find a good link to post when I post a photo of the flower (probably in a couple of days).

This afternoon while walking home I spotted a rather large (to me anyway) hawk. I ran home to get my camera with a good zoom so I could hopefully get a good photo. Birds are not creatures that I can easily identify so I got online and did a few searches for hawks found in Memphis, TN. The only one that was a close match was the red shouldered hawk. Because of my angle I couldn't get a good shot of the shoulder. You can compare my photos below