Bees, Birds, Butterfly and a Toad

I have been watching for migrating birds in the yard.  The trouble is, it is hard to get good pictures of them.  Still I am entertained and enjoy observing and learning.  After a busy day of gardening it is fun to get out the camera and take a closer look at what is visiting the flowers.  So here are a few creatures I saw this week.

Bombylius major – bee-fly.  This little brown bee-fly with a long proboscis is enjoying nectar from the strawberry flower.  It is a fly that is a bee mimic.  No stinging involved here.  The wings were flying very rapidly so it could hover above this flower.

I have some pink strawberry flowers, too.  It looks like a lot of strawberries are coming soon!

I can never remember the exact name of these blue bulbs, here visited by what looks like a mini-bumble bee.  It was hard to focus on both the flower and the bee, so I took a lot of shots.

Here the same blue flowers are below the birdbath where a male goldfinch is coming for a quick drink.  There have been quite a few goldfinches in the neighborhood.

I think this is a white-crowned sparrow.  If I have this wrong let me know.  They are not in my book of birds of Chicago, so I think this guy is just migrating through.

Often from the kitchen window it is hard to know what I am seeing across the yard.  Is this still the white-crowned sparrow, a palm warbler or something else?

Or this slightly blurry bird snacking in the chinquapin oak tree.  Is this a palm warbler migrating through, or something else?  My camera was focusing on the beautiful oak leaves and catkins hanging down.

A red admiral butterfly has a great camouflage with closed wings.

Red admiral butterfly

Back in a weedy part of the garden a toad hopped to get out of my way and try to blend into the surroundings.  I am so happy to have toads in the yard.

We enjoy our chinquapin oak tree so much, as do the birds.  Our laundry poles keep me from getting a very good shot of it, but once warm weather comes the laundry can dry so quickly outside.

I planted garlic for the first time and it seems to be doing well.

Seeds Sprouted:  All the bush cucumber seeds sprouted so maybe I will try making pickles this year.  The wax beans are sprouting and I saw two zinnias emerge.  The lettuce needs to be thinned and nibbled on.

Sightings:  We saw quite a few large bull frogs at Lake Katherine today, and could hear them, too.

Swallowtails and Dragonflies

The agastace is in full bloom now and attracting butterflies and bees of all types.  I should have studied entomology!  I just checked out Sue Hubbell’s book about bugs, “Broadsides from the Other Orders.”

I think this is a female eastern tiger swallowtail on the agastache ‘blue fortune’ giant hyssop plant.

Here is a side view of the eastern tiger swallowtail on the hyssop.  I like the striped body.  It looks like she is using her proboscis to sip nectar.  Is that kind of like a straw?

Limenitis arthemis – red spotted purple butterfly, I think, on agastache.  At first I thought it was a black swallowtail, but it does not have a tail.

Here is a closed wing view of the red spotted purple butterfly on agastache.  You can see the pollen on its body.

Just below the agastache a black swallowtail caterpillar is resting in the parsley.  There are a lot of hungry birds in the yard, though, so I am never sure if these guys will survive.

Agastache ‘blue fortune’ giant hyssop.’  On the left is heliopsis helianthoides ‘Summer Sun.’  The agastache plant is really buzzing, mostly with bees and flies.

I think this is a carpenter bee on the agastache.  In any case it is a very big bee.

Here is a different kind of bee.  It looks a little more like a honey bee of some type.

Red admiral butterflies are fairly common in the yard.  Here on Echinacea purpurea – purple coneflower.

There are small white cabbage moths all over the yard.  Here on Russian sage with miscanthus ornamental grass in the background.

 

One day I was looking out of the living room window and I saw something slide out of the bottom of the big silver maple tree.  I went outside with my camera and saw this yellow caterpillar with black spikes coming out of its back scurrying across the lawn.  Looking it up online I found that it is an American dagger moth caterpillar.  Apparently they leave the tree and look for a good place to make their cocoon.  The spikey hairs are poisonous.

Red dragonfly on liatris spicata – blazing star – a native plant.  I saw a number of red dragonflies around the garden yesterday.  In Japanese the name is “aka tombo.”  If you look that name up on line you will hear a famous Japanese song.

I was having lunch outside one day this week and almost did not see this big green dragonfly that rested on the butterfly weed near where I was sitting.

Praying Mantis update:  I have not seen any praying mantises in the yard this year.  Considering that I found 6 – 8 praying mantis egg sacs from last year I expected more.  It may have been the very cold winter or it may be that we really have a lot of bird in the yard this year eating the babies.  Or it may be some other reason.

July Blooms

As the days heat up more flowers are starting to blooms.

Liatris spicata – blazing star – is a prairie plant.  I added a number of new bulbs to the garden this spring.  In the background are Shasta daisies.

Bumble bee on liatris spicata – blazing star.

I was so excited to see a monarch butterfly on my butterfly weed this week.  I took this picture from the kitchen window because I did not want to scare it away.

Today I saw a red admiral butterfly on the butterfly weed.

First flowering of Buddleia buzz midnight – a butterfly bush I planted this year.  I am waiting for it to get a little bigger and for the butterflies to find it.  In front is lacinato kale.

The zinnias I planted from seed are just starting to bloom.  I went out and bought a little wire fence to put around them so they won’t fall on the lawn.  Later I put down some mulch here and around the yard after I did some weeding.  These flowers are a real draw for the butterflies and the goldfinches love to pick off the flowers, too.

The dwarf mums have been blooming 6-8 weeks already!  This color is called ‘bronze.’

Coreopsis – Tickseed

Cantaloupe flower.  Other yellow flowers in the garden now are on the cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and kale.

These are the wax beans I picked over the past two days.  I boiled them with salt and pepper and added a little butter.  Delicious!

Cooking:  I also made a little pesto with basil, parsley, cashews, olive oil, nutritional yeast and lemon juice.  It was really nice on a little French bread!