Chasing butterflies....

Last Thursday I drove down the road to Hartman Arboretum to see if there were any butterflies. I found plenty, but spent more time "chasing" them then getting good photos! The part of the garden that the butterlies like the best is nicely grown up, so there was a lot to attract them.
My best shot of the day.....FINALLY an open blue butterfly! Normally these tiny little things sit there closed up tight and I get a lot of edge shots and some side shots. They sure love the clover and I stirred them up everywhere I walked in the grass. I think it is the Eastern Tailed Blue, which is the only kind I seem to see.

There were 3 Tiger Swallowtails around the Bottle Bush, but I had trouble getting them to pose for me. I went around and around that bush trying to keep up with them!

The best shot I got.

I seem to get a lot of shots of them hanging like this and can't get into position as the wind blows them around.

One black Tiger Swallowtail.

Lots of the little Silver Spotted Skippers....with their "white elephant" mark.

A Painted Lady not quite all the way open.

Here is her side view.

Lots of bees enjoying themselves.

I scared this young Red-Wing Blackbird out of one clump of milkweed and grass.

I'll try to go back this Thursday and maybe it won't be so windy. This is always a great place for a variety of butterflies, but they are only open to the public on Thursdays.

Are you my mother?......

I've heard about Cowbirds laying their eggs in other bird's nests, but had never observed the results before.....until yesterday! Cowbird "baby" and Chipping Sparrow!
"Are you my mother?"
"I'm hungry!"

Kind of cute when not begging

"Feed me!!!!!"

"Ah, shucks.....I'm just a big baby"

"Oh, good, Mom.......more!"
I thought the mother Chipping Sparrow looked a little leery everytime it gave the big baby some food.

"I'll wait here.....come back with more food soon!"

Fountain visitors....

The latest crop of baby House Sparrows discovered the "froggy fountain" yesterday. I'm sorry about the bad light on some of these. The fountain is in the shade and I was shooting these through the glass windows by the front door.5 of the little sparrows checking it out
Getting a drink at the top where the water sort of collects at the frog leg.

OK....go right to the source.

The wind was blowing the water around, so it was funny to watch them "chase" the water.

"Maybe if we all surround this magic water thing we can control it."

Getting wet at the base.....not much room to play in the water. My flat clay dish that the sparrows like to play in broke and I need to get a new one.

A House Finch stopped to join the sparrows.

And a Titmouse

I think this is a young Titmouse. There wasn't any black patch above the beak and it's crest is pretty small :-)

The Chipping Sparrow tries the fountain next.

A busy day!

There seem to be a lot of young birds right now....the baby House Sparrows, a baby Chipping Sparrow was in the driveway this morning, the young Titmouse, and I saw a young Cardinal but didn't get a photo.

SkyWatch Friday from Oaklyn Library's meadow

It's SkyWatch Friday! We've had blue skies with lots of puffy clouds all week! This shot of the sky was at a public park. (Formerly a landfill and this area is off-limits to people, but the meadowlarks like it)

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The rest of my post is of the flower meadow at Oaklyn Library. This branch of our public library is underground with a lovely wildflower meadow on top that you can walk around.

A view of the sky as I walk up the hill to get on top of the library.

What looks like a "building" is actually a skylight looking down into the library below. They have mown paths among the flowers and I walked around for an hour or more looking for butterflies and enjoying the flowers.

An over-view of part of the meadow.

Masses of flowers that were full of bees.
Below are shots of various critters and flowers I saw.

Widow Skimmer male

Sulphur

A couple of bugs here, but don't know what kind

Black Tiger Swallowtail, I think. It was very windy and this butterfly stayed deep in the flowers.

One of the many bees that loved this flowers!
Some grasses along one edge of the meadow.

A last view of the sky!
That's my SkyWatch for this week. For more skies from around the world click on the icon on my sidebar.

Bluegrass bathing beauties....

We drove to Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife area to have our lunch while watching birds...hopefully.

We pulled into one parking lot by a lake to take photos of the lotus flowers and suddenly several birds showed up to take baths and get a drink!Dickcissel on the left, 2 male Goldfinches, but what is on the right???
Here it is before the bath......bigger than the Goldfinches, and a more pointed beak. An Oriole of some sort? Looking in my book, it looks most like an Orchard Oriole, but having never seen one, I really don't know.

It really enjoyed the water!

3 in the water.

Goldfinch wading :-)

The tall Lotus flowers were what caught our eye and brought us into the parking lot to begin with.

They were really pretty. We've never been there when they were in bloom before. Usually I just see the dried seed pods.

Such interesting centers!

They were blowing in the wind, so it was hard to get the photos I was aiming for at times.

Well, those are my "bathing beauties". We saw a few other things, but will save something for tomorrow.