Dragonfly egg laying.....

I saw these two dragonflies laying their eggs today at the wetlands. This was the first female I saw who laid the eggs with the male still attached. The ones that visit my home pond..... the female mates and then immediately lays the eggs by herself by dipping her tail in the water. I haven't gotten any good shots of that yet.

I think these are Green Darners. My photos are not good, because they were pretty far from me and the digital zoom never takes a really clear photo and I couldn't crop any of the others any better either. But it was interesting to watch them!

I think this is the Widow Skimmer female. I have not seen her up to now......just the male. It isn't a real clear picture either, but none of them wanted to get close today :-)

Daylily time!

Daylilies are very popular in this area! Some people own many varieties and colors and types.

This is the ordinary kind that grow "wild" along the roadside. I just love seeing them everywhere I drive!
This is a drive I take all the time and as you can see there are huge stretches of these lilies....unless the roadside mowing crew gets to them!

Such masses of beauty!

......along shaded woods, as well.....

.....along fences and in small clumps in yards.

I really like them better then some of the cultivated ones that are popular. They seem more "natural". Each flower only lasts one day, but they have many buds.

I have a double-petaled version of this one that will bloom soon.

I used to have some dark reddish ones, and a couple types of yellow ones, but don't see too many buds so far. One of the yellow types blooms in the spring and is gone already. I need to thin all of them. Then there are the pink "surprise lilies".....but not yet :-) I always forget where they are and when they will bloom, since the green leaves are long gone.

Sunflowers, silly sparrow, and Slaty Skimmers.....

OK.......see if you can say that 6 times real fast :-)

It seems to have been an "S" day in several ways.My first sunflower from the many seeds that fall under my bird feeder tree. I always let a patch of them grow. Later on the goldfinches will pick them clean of seeds and enjoy them greatly. The butterflies like them, too.

I love this bud.

This is my "silly sparrow". Later in the day, I found the poor little thing had gotten inside this suet cage and had its head sticking out one hole and its wing out another. It was just sitting there trapped.....looking so scared without a clue how to get out! I have no idea how long it was there. I held it and dumped the suet cake out and pushed its wing gently back through the hole and it was able to turn around and fly off like the wind was after it. I think I will not hang that one horizontal again until a few of these little sparrows grow up and go away.

Slaty Skimmer male......I think. I had trouble finding this one and apparently its color varies a lot. I have pictures where it looks black and ones where it looks navy blue.

This is the female.....she had been laying eggs, but I didn't realize what she was doing and didn't take pictures....duh. She kept dipping her tail in the water.

Male and female together. She is sort of a dull brown on the sides. Hope to see her better eventually.

Damselfly....identify, please?

I swore that I was NOT going to get into Damselflies.............however when they stop right in front of you, it would be silly not to take a picture!
What is it?
I've tried to find it on the net. No luck so far. You would think that yellow head would make it easy to find. If anyone knows a good internet site for identifying both dragonflies an damselflies with good pictures, please tell me the address!

(OK.....Tom at Ohio Nature Blog comes through for me again! He says it is an Orange Bluet! Thanks, alot Tom! )
For anyone else who doesn't know where to identify their bugs, I had several suggestions to check out Bugguide.net

Squirrel Sunday....hanging out

Just hanging out looking for a snack....

.....oh oh.....I'm falling! Help.......

.....stop laughing! It's not funny!

You could make this a lot easier for me.....after all I'm not a bird !!