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Saturday in Miraflores

Saturday in Miraflores

Spring is here and insects are coming into their own. Hadn't seen many until the last couple of days. Here in the pretty Chinese Garden on top of Miraflores' cliffs yellow Wedelia has attracted this wonderful metallic green Bee. I'm not entirely sure but think it's an Augochloropsis kind.

It was sea-misty but with some periods of brightness. They showed off the beautiful black of Our Bird, a Scrub Blackbird. It was collecting nesting material in a just-watered flowerbed of geraniums in a cliff-top park at Miraflores. Now and then a second bird would utter its really very melodious song. Warszewiczi is for Józef Warszewicz (1812-1866), Polish botanist and inveterate naturalist and traveler. In a second voyage to South America 1851-1853, he was at Guayaquil, Ecuador, robbed of everything he had but continued his travels to Peru until ill health forced him back to Europe.

Along the coast line of Miraflores to San Isidro there's a range of parks with flower beds among which those with Tropical Milkweed, Asclepias curassavica. Monarch Wanderers are particularly attracted to their flowers. They flutter and sail, wheel and frolic about and cavort, often ending up in mating pairs on the grassy lawns. One hopes 2025 will be good to their offspring!

In his seminal work on Gymnetis beetles, Brett C. Ratcliffe in 2018 writes that Beetles in general constitute one-fourth of all living creatures on earth. Isn't that amazing! A small number of them are Gymnetis kinds, and Ratcliffe first scientifically described this Harlequin Beetle endemic to Peru. I saw it on the path above the cliffs of Miraflores, Lima. I know nothing about this amazing insect but given my interest in Bees was interested to learn that it invades the nests of Honeybees. And it's regarded as something of an agricultural pest. Notwithstanding, I admired my find as did Olymp.

The small Museum of Contemporary Art in Barranco, just to the south of Miraflores has some tropical flowers many of which are exotics. But this pretty Crucifix Orchid is from the tropical areas of South America, notably also of Peru. It's now become pantropical and I've encountered it in many place and posted about it before (e.g.: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/5396038174/in/photolis...). In the early nineteenth century it was denominated 'one of the finest of its race', and who am I to dispute that!

Spanning a canyon leading down on cobblestones through the steep, rocky palisades from Miraflores to the Pacific is this iconic bridge. It's named for a mayor of Miraflores, Eduardo Villena Rey (1879-1951). The responsible architect was Héctor Ángel Velarde Bergmann (1898-1989), who by avocation was also an acclaimed novelist and short-story author. The bridge was inaugurated in 1968 and completely renewed in 2016. Its illumination dates from 2021 in honor of the bicentennial of Peru's independence.

Lima stands proudly on a high plateau which crashes into the Pacific much as Pacific Palisades in California. There's a scenic, nicely landscaped walkway on the top of those cliffs in Miraflores. Fine plants and flowers everywhere. And I saw this Cycad there as well. It's not native to Peru and I don't know its provenance here. The City of the Kings down through the centuries has been mundial; the Spanish, of course, had a world empire. Whether our Cycad was imported to Peru back then or whether it's here by a new horticultural design is unknown to me. Anyone out their in Flickrland in the know?

Success is not final, failure is not fatal:
it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill

Playing with filters

September 13, 2016 - Environment around La Panka Brasas Peruanas. Miraflores Lima Peru.

September 13, 2016 - Lunch at La Panka Brasas Peruanas. Miraflores Lima Peru.

September 13, 2016 - Lunch at La Panka Brasas Peruanas. Miraflores Lima Peru.