The attractions of Sedum.....

I love when the sedum flowers begin to turn pink because I know they will attract all sorts of interesting butterflies and bees!  They are pretty flowers all by themselves, but when all the critters come, it really gets interesting!

Today was one of the first days for the flowers to bloom and the critters are very plentiful. 

 This first butterfly is new to me.....I think it is some sort of Azure, but would hate to try to name it for sure.

 One of the bees?  There are an assortment of bees, and wasps and "whatevers" that hang around.

You can just see a Gray Hairstreak hiding on the left and a skipper on the right. 

 This is the time each year I see this Gray Hairstreak, so I am glad it likes Sedum flowers.

 I'm not good at identifying the skippers, so I'll just post their photos.  There appeared to be 3-4 different kinds to me, but I'm not sure about males and females either.

 I like when they sit in the "jet fighter plane" position.....so cute.

 You can see in this photo how much the Sedum attracts....2 skippers and one bee on one flower.  Sometimes there are more than that on one flower.

 This shows how much bigger the Silver-spotted Skipper on the left is then all the other little skippers.

 Silver-Spotted from the side.

....and almost open!

  I also had a Monarch caterpillar out there this morning and tried to get a decent shot of it without disturbing it.  It is on some vines and sedum that are in a pot on the front step.

One more skipper shot.

I hope to see more over the next few days.

Photos from wetlands and arboretum....

I went two places last Thursday....Howell Wetlands and the Hartman Arboretum.  Two of my usual haunts.  I was looking for butterflies mostly, but saw a variety of critters.  The photos are mixed together, so I won't bother saying where each was taken.

 An Amberwing dragonfly on the rocks.

 I saw several black swallowtails on the flowers and think that they were mostly the black female version of the Tiger Swallowtail.  You can see the faint tiger stripes on a couple and also the short squat black body.

A large frog in the duckweed. 

A couple of Blue Dasher males.  The one above had a longer than normal black area on the tail. Maybe an age thing?

  Very tattered black swallowtail.

 A Common Whitetail male dragonfly

Black female Tiger.  The black ones are always female. 

A pair of Eastern Pondhawks mating.  Male on top, female underneath. 

Some of the really tall plants at the arboretum....the Joe Pye was huge. 

 Goldfinches either drinking or eating in the duckweed.

Slaty Skimmer with one torn wing. 

 This may be a Spicebush Swallowtail....not sure.

 Gray Squirrel

Silver Spotted Skipper 

 Tiger Swallowtail with only one tail missing

 Big fat green turtle :-)

Saw two tiny tree frogs but was having trouble getting photos....they were really hiding out in the shade. 

Two Tigers....one badly torn 

Tiny frog in the duckweed. 

 This poor Tiger was missing both hind wings.

 Big turtle again

This is so Rose can count the turtles :-)