More Misc...........

I guess I could have called this post the "wild" vs. the "cultivated".  The first 8 photos we were back at Mouteau Park and the last 7 we stopped at Hartman Arboretum to see what was beginning to grow.

 The Eastern-tailed Blue on a pretty grass of some sort.

 This Mockingbird usually greets us when we arrive......

 ......here he is by the gate checking out anyone who is entering HIS park.

 Pearl Crescent laid out on a clover leave for me.

 Some of the little wild flowers in the grass right now.

 This little grasshopper was very tiny!  I like the fuzzy leaf he is on, too.

Another wildflower "weed"....lots of these around right now.

 At Hartman Arboretum I saw this nice birdhouse.  Will be fun to see if it gets an inhabitant when we go back.  This place is open to the public on Thursdays, so I try to stop in every Thursday once the flowers are really blooming and there are lots of butterflies to photograph.  This place is only about 2 miles down the road from my house, so it is great to visit there and not have to use a lot of gas.

 Don't ask me what it is....but it is pretty :-)  I wrote down the name one other year, but have forgotten.

 These fuzzy plants are pretty right now.

 I love these and wish I had one.  A type of hydrangea?

 Lantana.....no butterflies while we were there.  It was chilly that day.

Another pretty bush, but didn't look for the name.

I hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!

The Lord is risen!

Hallelujah!

This and that at home......

Some leftovers to end the week.

 A very handsome Blue Jay sitting on the deck post.

 His curious look.....checking out the available food.

 He seemed sort of "dirty" looking and not quite so bright blue as some of them are.

 A pair looking down from the maple tree.

"Are there any peanuts today??  We really love peanuts!"

 The critic....but he will take what he can get.

"We'll be back!  Buy more peanuts!"

Mrs. Red-bellied still hanging around.

Any one need a maple tree?????   We have a few 1000 seeds all over the driveway and yards.  Surely there must be some bird or varmint out there that likes to eat their seeds!  We will be pulling up little maple trees all summer long.

And the "pink snow" from the cherry tree.

Good thing our gutters are only at knee height (that's MY knee height, not Mike's)!  What a mess!  Packed full and overflowing.

After I cleaned it out onto the ground.  Lots of mushy pink.

Ah, well.......its beauty while blooming makes up for the clean-up :-)

Blue on Blue.....

It's raining today, so I will pretend the sun is shining and show my little blue butterfly photos :-)

 The little Eastern-tailed Blues are so tiny.....you can see the clover behind this one.  The butterfly isn't any bigger than one lobe of the clover leaf.

 I watched them flit through the grass like little purple flowers....they look very dark blue when flying....but most of the time they wouldn't land anywhere for me.

 There must have been something special about this clover blossom!  It had two land on it......

.....and a third one tried! 

 I was just happy to get a few photo of them :-)

 I have probably seen these little butterflies flying around for years and never paid them any attention because of their small size.  But then I saw other bloggers posting blue butterflies and I was so wishing I would see one.  Not realizing they were there all the time!  Just shows what putting a camera up to your eye and reading blogs can teach you.  Thank you fellow Bloggers!

 I guess this is enough blue for one day :-)

Twice as nice.

Mouteau Park......

I went back to Mouteau Park yesterday to look for butterflies and dragonflies.  I guess because of the high cost of gas, they haven't mowed the park yet.  The grass is full of tall "weed" flowers of many kinds and attracting a lot of small butterflies and bugs.

It may be a "weed" to most people, but when filling a huge grassy field, I think Fleabane is very beautiful.

And the butterflies like it.

 The grass is so tall, the Robin was almost hidden from me.

 The Black Locust trees are blooming and the scent is overpowering.

 Tall Phlox along the edge of the trees.

 A Dandelion "puffer".

Steps leading me down into the weedy, flowery field......"butterfly heaven".

 There were lots of the tiny Eastern Tailed Blues in the grass.  This clover blossom was a big attraction!  I love watching them flit through the grass like little winged violets.  I will post more photos of them tomorrow.

 I don't know what these strange bugs are, but there were a bunch of them in the grass.  Didn't know if the tail of this first one is suppose to look like that or if it was broken off.  Not like the one below.

 A Crawdad hole (crayfish, crawdad, )  You see these all over the wet areas.  I never see the crawdads, but some of the holes are very tall.  I remember Mike telling me if you put a piece of bacon on a string and put it at the entrance of the hole, you might be able to pull one out.  I remember trying it, but I don't have enough patience and never caught one.  I did feel one nibble a couple of times.  Hmmmmm.....maybe Mike was just seeing if I was dumb enough to try it.

 A damselfly.....no idea which one.

 A dragonfly from an odd angle.   Not sure from this angle....maybe a Slaty Skimmer?  I know I usually see them here.

 Pearl Crescent on the Fleabane.

 Just an interesting tree hole.  I'm always taking shots of tree holes and hoping to see something in one.

 Violets and Dandelions

One of the "weed" flowers that I thought looked pretty.

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This photo wasn't at the park.  We passed this flooded field and I could see the wading birds along the edge. By the time we found a place to stop, they were all moving away from me.  Blue-winged Teal and some sort of sandpipers.

Desperate for something to post......

I'm really getting desperate for something to post in my blog!  When I got back from vacation, my birds had deserted the home feeders and seem to be very slow to come back.  Just nothing happening to take photos of.  And with the high cost of gas, I am not going out to a lot of my usual places.....sigh.

 One of our local parks....Mouteau Park.....is built on a former landfill.  It is the place where we always see Meadowlarks in the spring and where I can usually find certain butterflies and dragonflies.  On a recent stop there, we spotted this hawk sitting on one of the pipes that release the methane gas from the old landfill underneath this area.  Not very pretty to look at, but the birds will perch there.

 I think this is a young Red-shouldered Hawk.

The only Meadowlark we saw that day, was on one of the pipes.  I hope to see some more there soon and maybe get a better photo than this!  We usually can spot the Meadowlarks by listening for them.  They sing loudly and then when you figure out the general direction of where they are, they will pop up suddenly from the tall grass and you can spot the yellow on their chests.