SkyWatch Friday a day late: "Dundee Home of the goat"......

.....That's what it says.....read the sign! The goat?????? Mike and I were really wondering about this sign until we came around the corner and saw this......
"The goat".....is a weather vane on top of what was once an old Methodist church, but is now the local Masonic Lodge.

It is a lightweight zinc alloy and has been atop the church for over 100 years.

The town is named for Dundee, Scotland. I'm so glad the sky was lovely for taking a photo of this oddity :-) Even though it is now Saturday, I will link this to SkyWatch Friday! This was my sky......with goat! Click here for more great SkyWatch photos. Thanks team for keeping SkyWatch going for so many years!

We went to Louisville, KY for a wedding, but had a lot of spare time to kill between wedding related events, so we visited places like the Louisville Slugger Museum, the Churchill Downs Museum and track, and the Mega Cavern with others in the group that were there. None of this is nature related, so I don't have a lot of nature photos to show from the last few days, although the wedding was in an outdoor garden that was very pretty. On the way there we took a detour through Ohio County Kentucky because it has more of the Quilt Barns that I like to take photos of. I will be posting those. Some of the other stuff may end up in other blogs.

Goldfinch......

I have a male Goldfinch that thinks the only place it can drink is from the ant guard that is in the middle of the Hummingbird feeder!It lands at the top.......
.....works its way down......

.....sticks its head in and takes a nice long drink!

Why?

Is this like people drinking bottled water instead of tap water?

All done!

The female is perfectly happy with the fountain....even covered in algae :-)

This and that at home....

Well, I have a bunch of left over bits as usual.....A Cicada......a very cool looking and noisy bug :-)
Monarch on the Milkweed Honeyvine. This vine is a volunteer and helps to hide my dead Dogwood tree.....it is considered a weed, but I've had all sorts of butterflies, skippers, bees, wasps, hummingbird moths flocking around it all week! The Goldfinches have been nibbling on the flowers, the Hummingbird likes it! It may be an invasive weed, but all of the winged critters love it!
I like this Monarch shot for all the "spots" in the background caused by light coming through gaps in the trees.

The dark Tiger Swallowtail likes the vine.

On edge.....a different angle.

My House Wren has gotten quiet and comes and goes, so I hope that means it finally found a mate and started a family.

A very hot and bedraggled looking Titmouse at the fountain. My fountain looks awful right now with all the algae on it, but it isn't easy to clean.

Video of a Hummingbird Moth flying around the vine. They really like these flowers. I can never tell if my videos have loaded correctly. I'll be out of town by the time this shows.

Hummingbird photos: "the good, the marginal, and the don't-even-bother-keeping-it".....

Somehow that seems to sum up taking hummingbird photos! Out of nearly 300 photos, I only had a handful that might be called "good".
These were all taken through the glass by my front door.....always where I get the best shots of hummers!

The camera likes this spot.....except for that irritating oblong of white light behind the hummer's tail.

I spent at least an hour sitting in my front yard watching a hummingbird come and go at this feeder....not more than 10' from where I was sitting. However, these all fall in the "marginal" category, as far as I'm concerned! They are more silhouette than photo.

She likes this feeder because she can "sit down and rest a spell". Of course I would have preferred shots of her hovering :-)

Between eating stops she was busy chasing away a couple other hummers.

I threw out more photos than I kept....lots of those "don't-even-bother-keeping-it" shots!We are headed out of town for a few days, but I have at least one more post set to go before we get back.

Beauty playing with danger....

I don't know how these fragile butterflies can hang around all those thorns on the Thistles and not get their wings torn up.

Golden sunshine.....

Goldfinches and Black-eyed Susans.....guaranteed to brighten any day!

Look at that....a squirrel!

It's been awhile since I've seen a squirrel.....maybe I can convince him to be the new "Star".ME: "Hey....you with your nose in the gravel.....would you like to be the new "star" of Squirrel Sunday??"
ME: "Great pay....all the food you can eat! Good living conditions (well, except for my three cats, but they won't bother you....much)"

ME: "What do you think.....huh?"

ME: "You're a very quiet squirrel......cat got your tongue? LOL Sorry, I couldn't resist that."

THE NEW STAR WANNABE: "I've heard about you and your "Squirrel Sunday".....I'm not sure I want to be a "Star". I'll let you know next week....maybe....keep putting food out here while I think about it......lots of food."

More butterflies from Hartman Arboretum....

Some of the shots that I took of the butterflies.....I was enjoying watching a pair of Buckeyes chase each other around these spiky flowers. They are so willing to open up that I seldom get a side shot. This sort of shows the side view.

Butterfly courting?

Butterfly "kissing"? LOL

The two stayed close together and went round and round.

I'm still trying to get good shots of this Gray Hairstreak ? It is a new butterfly to me for this year. It always seems to be down low where I can't get good shots. I'm fascinated by the little "tails" that seem to fan out and look fuzzy.

Not a terrific shot, but it shows the orange abdomen (matches the flowers) and the little tails.

Mr. Hartman said he had some Monarch caterpillars in his own garden, so we went to see them. He says they seem to like the "swamp milkweed" better than the traditional. There were about a dozen of them crawling around the plants.

Caterpillar on the left and Hummingbird moth hovering over the purple flower.

I always think that Monarch caterpillars look like they are both "coming and going"....hard to tell one end from the other.

A skipper I don't know.....maybe a Duskywing of some sort?

A side shot of it. It sure liked these flowers.

The Hummingbird moth liked to start at the bottom of these pink flowers and move upward checking each flower.

Drinking deeply

Always a lot of Silver Spotted Skippers.

Visiting the zinnia.

No butterfly....I just like this zinnia :-)

A Cabbage White female (two spots).

OK....I need to get out and find something other than butterflies, but we are having temps in the 90's and lots of humidity to go with it. I wilt just thinking about going out.