Last of August

Catbird

Jack-in-the-Pulpit fruit

Pearl crescent

Look carefully at those brown seed heads in the meadow.

Grasshopper

Mating sachems

Cicadas

This is the annual cicada that we hear "singing" during these late hot summer days. We are more likely to hear rather than see them.

The cicada nymphs live underground and feed on roots. Then they climb up on trees (or on the outside wall of my apartment), molt and emerge as adults. This is the discarded skin.

This huge wasp is a cicada killer.

The cicada killer wasp takes the cicada to her underground burrow, where she will lay an egg on it and her babies will eat the still alive cicada. In fact it may take two or three cicadas to raise a female wasp, becuase they are so big.

Odds and Ends

Odd. When is a black butterfly not a black butterfly! This is a female eastern tiger swallowtail, you know that big beautiful yellow butterfly. The females mimic the toxic pipevine swallowtails as protection.

Ends! These are mated wasps, flying as one.

Odd indeed! This purple coneflower has developed an unusual growth pattern.

The end of the wild bergamot in the meadow means seeds for the goldfinch to eat.

A Walk Before Dinner

Another new dragonfly. This is a male twelve-spotted skimmer. Isn't it a beauty! The size is 2 inches. From Dragonflies Through Binoculars, "During territorial disputes, the male that can fly vertical loops around his opponent wins."

This beautiful hibiscus glows in the garden behind H-9. It is the size of a dinner plate.

Sometimes it is fun to walk in the late afternoon, and there are always interesting things to be seen.

This blue vervain in the meadow seemed to attract so many butterflies late in the day. There were 5 on it, but only a few remained for the photo.

No Butters only Dragons

This is a female eastern amberwing. Size 0.9 inches. Seen here perched on the head of a black-eyed Susan.

This damselfly was on the road, and I am calling it a "purple bluet", though I do not know what it is. My only reference is a web site for Georgia damselflies. I do wish there was a book or web site for dragonflies and damselflies of Pennsylvania or the mid-Atlantic region. Can anyone help?

Halloween Pennant. Size is 1.5 inches. Not the greatest photo, and I have seen this one before.

This beautiful creature is a band-winged Meadowhawk. Size is 1.3 inches. It was feeding on the side of the meadow, but when I returned to this spot later, it was gone. I was lucky to see it.

I am still waiting impatiently for some beautiful butterflies to appear, but I am happy to be learning all these new dragonflies in the meantime.

More Meadow

Side oats grama grass. The grasses are beginning to show, and should make the meadow very attractive into the fall.

Drone fly. A honey bee look-alike.

Eastern sand wasp

Female eastern amberwing. Very small , 0.9 inches. In "Dragonflies through Binoculars" the female wings are described as variable with a stained glass effect.

Song sparrow

Meadow and More Meadow

Meadow madness. This is a critter's view of the meadow, not the one we humans usually see.

This hummingbird clearwing moth is a day-flying moth that hovers at flowers to drink the nectar.

Honey bee on a black-eyed Susan. Someone said we don't have any bees, but we do have bees, and we certainly have many more with the meadow than we had with the lawn. Perhaps next year we will have even more.

Eastern tiger swallowtail

Grasses in a cicle. I have a trial version of the new Paint Shop Pro X2, and I was playing with it today. Should I keep it?