Cardinal Flower, Millpond

Every year towards the end of July when I trek to the millpond, I have certain telltale things I'm looking for: a couple of dragonfly species, the first of the returning shorebirds and warblers, and one particular flower. These speak volumes about a kind of turning of the year—the passage from the height of summer to, well, something on the downslope side of peak. The Cardinal Flower, as red as any august member of the Vatican leadership or the male of that familiar avian species, is my favorite floral passage-of-time marker, and in the past couple of days, the first of the Lobelia cardinalis corps started to bloom. I hope the image does the color justice, but, given my somewhat red-green colorblind eyes, I really can't see it for what. I'm told, is about as intense a red as exists on the planet. While I use it as a gauge of what red, I suspect that most viewers—and all of the hummingbirds the blossoms attract—see the ultra-saturated color as far more intense than my eyes can detect. Deficient cone cells or not, I see something remarkable here, something that draws my eyes... and my camera... to the wet edges of the millpond to drink in the Cardinal Flower show.