Did you know that Orange was not a color (at least in English) until the 1500s?  It's true (at least according to the internet).  I went and checked because a thought struck me while walking around yesterday:  Why is a robin "redbreast"?  Or, to tie it to the photo below, why is the blackbird "red-winged"?  To my mind they've always looked orange.  It got me to wondering if color perceptions had changed over time or if it was a linguistic issue.  Turns out it's the latter.  Until the 1500s, the spectrum went red - yellowred (or redyellow) - yellow.  The word orange was imported into the language from French, which got it from Arabic, which got it from Sanskrit.  By that time, though, the robin was already called redbreast, presumably because it is easier to say than redyellow breast.

I wonder what other apparent anomalies are out there that I've not noticed.

red-winged blackbird

In Minnesota, at least, the columbine is one of the more ubiquitous wildflowers of spring.  They grow all over the place, have an interesting shape and nice color.  This one was captured at Lone Lake, with sun sparkling off the lake in the background.

columbine

Having a camera provides a strange barrier between me and reality.

In real life, there are lots of things that I find dangerous or creepy or scary.  Things that I try to avoid because I don't like them.  Give me a camera, though, and they are transformed into "subject"; something that looks interesting that I want to capture as a photograph.  I'll happily lean out over railings or go to the edge of a cliff to avoid a foreground I dislike.  I'll try to get as close to bees or other stinging creatures.  Doesn't matter as long as I can get the image I want.

Here's a case in point.  This is a golden silk orb weaver...A spider...A BIG spider...Close to the size of my hand (at least in memory).  They're all over the place near my cousin's home in Florida.  And they're colorful and have nifty patterns.  So, I had to get a good shot of one. 

I'm still not going to pick one up, though.

golden silk orb weaver