I Love Blogging/Camera Critters

After work yesterday, I went outside and spent an hour taking 301 photos of critters, blooms, and the sky for the memes I participate in. (I needed to delete many of them.) There are so many ones I like to see on others' blogs, but I am only able to keep up with a few.

I went out the front door, and the first critter I saw was this Tiger Swallowtail on our largest butterfly bush.

The wasps are still enjoying the mountain mint.

I think this is lightening bug on the Eupatorium perfoliatum, a relative of Joe pye weed.

This a fly on rue. I had several caterpillars on it last year, but haven't seen any on it this year. I even planted a couple more for them this year.

I enjoyed my time in the veggie garden, where there is lots of verbena bonariensis, which attracts lots of butterflies and bees, who happily share the blooms. There were a number of butterflies out and about today. I wasn't able to get a photo of the cabbage whites, which teased me by landing nearby, then taking off before I could get a photo. Here is an American Painted Lady feeding next to a bee.

Two more American Painted Ladies:

Another Painted Lady:

The boltonia, (if I'm remembering correctly) in the flower bed in front of the veggie garden is full of insects, but it was hard to get a good photo of them. I cropped this photo to get the bee larger.

Next, I went across the street to see what I could find to take photos of. The tithonia, Mexican sunflowers here are about a foot taller than I am. I saw 4 monarch butterflies on them! (The zinnias in front of them were also visited by the monarchs and bees.)

There were several bees, too.

I went back home, and into the back yard, trying to find the rabbit I had seen go in there after it saw me walking toward it in the side yard. There were a number of insects on the garlic chive blooms.

The insects that remind me of lightening bugs are still enjoying the rough goldenrod, and are sharing it with a bee.

I think this is Wichita Falls goldenrod, and I'm not sure what kind of wasp or bee this is.

Did I mention I really had a good time on my hunt for critters? At this point, I was thinking about how much I love blogging, and even though I sometimes spend more time on it than I should, my housework gets neglected, and, like this evening, I am staying up too late, I feel like my enjoyment of gardening and nature is enhanced by it. I saw 4 daddy long legs today, and if I wasn't blogging, I would not have gone out to see them. I am more observant of my world now.

Here is the first daddy long legs I saw on this Indian Summer rudbeckia, which had aphids on it that I couldn't get a picture of. There was another on a different bloom, too.

There were 2 more on the fence. I just included one of them.

I went back to the front to see if I missed anything, and there was a monarch on the butterfly bush.

This was a blue of some kind that I couldn't get a good photo of.

This photo was taken a couple days ago. This garter snake was so afraid of me, that I was only able to get this photo of it before it made its get-away.

Have a fun and safe weekend! I may do some research and come back to better ID what I've posted, but if you think you know what they are, go ahead and say in a comment. Another thing that blogging brings is awesome blogging friends and acquaintances to learn and get ideas from. We give each other lots of encouragement, too. I need to find a way to read faster or something so that I can keep up with all the blogs I try to follow.

It's September, and I am sad that summer is almost over, and am already thinking about spring.

To see more Camera Critters or find out how to include your critter post, click on the icon in my sidebar.