Monarch Momma on the Mountain

        Today it was Stephanie's turn to come running in, saying, "Come to the garden. We have a Monarch!"  It was feeding on the butterfly bushes at first, and in the heat was keeping its wings folded. We weren't sure of the sex. But then it floated over to the milkweed, and started laying eggs, at least 20 or so, all around he back section of the waystation. Occasionally it would take a nectar break and then would get back to business. 
        Some of the milkweed is just coming into flower, and the Monarch mother did something that we had not seen before. It laid a number of eggs directly within the developing flower. We will be watching to see how that turns out,. See the photo below. 

         This is certainly a time of year when butterfly species begin to think about and act for the preservation of their species. Two lovely Pearl Crescents found a coneflower to be the perfect spot for an intimate rendezvous. Dear reader, we will spare you the details. 
​           A beautiful little Hairstreak also enjoyed the Coneflowers as well. 

            Everywhere we turned in the garden, something else wonderful was happening. Allow us to share some more images. 
               First, a Zabulon skipper appears downright cuddly in close-up!

        And while we are on skippers, a rare visitor, a Horace's Duskywing, skipped into the lantana. 

             Every day this week, the garden has been full of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, including numerous examples of the black morph variety. Below we see a lovely grouping on their favorite flower, the butterfly bush. 

           Other friends were also visiting. Rick finally scored a hummingbird photo he liked, while not far away the Snowberry Clearwing variety of the hummingbird moth, looking more like a bandit bumblebee, also savored a bloom on the butterfly bush. 

         We could go on and on, but for now let us leave you with one more shot of the Queen from today. We will keep you updated as the eggs hatch and the caterpillars grow through their instar stages over the next couple weeks.