A Multitude of Monarchs.....

I should have put these photos in a collage, but I'm too lazy and not very good at making them.

I saw a lot of Monarchs over the weekend. They seem to prefer the purple asters the most
It was very windy both days and I think that is why I didn't get many opportunities for open wing shots....they were hanging on and swaying with the flowers.

A partial open

A little more. Every wing was perfect, so I assume they were newly hatched.

With all the tall grasses, photo taking was a challenge. I'm always amazed at how polka-dotted the Monarchs are......look at all those spots!

This was the most open shot I got.

I like them on these white flowers even more than the purple...better contrast.

Perfect polka dots

2 in one plant. I saw 3 on another plant, but it was behind a lot of stuff. I'm short and have trouble shooting over or through the grass jungle. While I tried to get these 2 and the other 2 with them, I turned around and 2 more were behind me! What a day!

Buckeye's and Question Mark's....

Saturday and Sunday at the wetlands, was a butterfly paradise. I decided to divide them up for posting. I've seen the Question Mark butterfly before, but not as well displayed. Saturday it was on the boardwalk leading across the creek......
.....and Sunday it was still hanging around in the leaves next to the boardwalk....

....or on the post! The outside is sure not as fancy as the beautiful inside!

Another butterfly I saw both days was the Buckeye

I like how it looked among these grasses.....

....it seemed to like any of the flowers....white...

......purple....

....and yellow!

I saw a lot of Monarchs that looked brand new...with perfect wings.
I'll get them sorted out for tomorrow.

The butterflies won't be around much longer, so I need to enjoy them while I can.

The Great Blue Heron....

I had three different sightings of Great Blue Heron in the last 7 days, so I thought I would just lump them all together. Last Wednesday we went back to Blue Grass to see if the Horned Larks were still there...they were! It was raining so these photos aren't the best. This Great Blue was stalking the edge of the lake near the larks. I used this photo to show how tall the grasses are around these lakes. They manage to make the Great Blue look fairly small :-)
He was stalking a fish, but didn't make any grabs.

Finally he got ready to go try somewhere else.

Off he goes.

Saturday I stopped at Howell Wetlands and as I was crossing the boardwalk realized there was a Great Blue at the edge, so I stopped for photos. He wants to get further away from me, so he is going to hop on the boardwalk.

He sat there for a few minutes, but finally decided I wasn't going to go away or there weren't any fish around...whatever.

I caught him as he started to lift off. I like the way the wings are ready to soar upwards, but the feet are still firmly planted on the rail! Sort of like a lot of us....we want to soar, but still keep our feet on the ground :-)

I had such a good day at Howell on Saturday that I went back on Sunday! The meadow is full of butterflies, which I will get to in other posts.

This was my favorite Heron of all......I didn't see the 3 turtles at his feet until I had the photo on the computer! I was trying a short path into the woods along the creek and spotted him standing there.

I always love to see a Great Blue Heron, even if I've seen them a hundred times before. They are just so majestic and the biggest bird that I usually see.

Turtle Sunday....

"The wearing of the green".....and it's not even St. Patrick's Day!

Perhaps my turtles are all Irish!So meet...... *Patrick Finnagan
* Mike O'Shea

* Sean O'Malley

....and *Shamus O'Brian

(*all names fictional and any resemblance to a real turtle by that name is totally coincidental...and really strange!)
Maybe they are all coming out to watch a Notre Dame football game.......after all this is Indiana!

Best seats are on the log.....where's the big screen?

Looks like he's paddling a log into place

Even the youngsters get into the fun of the "green"

Some always prefer to hang out alone.....(or maybe they're rooting for Purdue).

Butterflies at Blue Grass.....

I'm running out of Blue Grass photos, but it has been raining all week. As we drove the roads, Mike spotted a turtle in the road, so I hopped out to take a photo and move it to the edge of the road. He wasn't very big, but he sure has long toenails.
Also in the road, was the first butterfly I saw that day. This Red-Spotted Purple Admiral didn't look very healthy, but I picked it up and moved it to the rocks at the side of the road so it wouldn't get run over.

Near the lake with the lotus pads of yesterday, I walked through a little bunch of small blue butterflies....Eastern-long Tailed Blue I think. If you look real closely, you will see two here. They were dancing together most of the time.

Here is a close-up of one.

Sulphurs were everywhere. Here are 4 along the edge of one lake. I guess these are male and female.....maybe Clouded Sulphurs?

When they hide in the grass they can be hard to see. I didn't see the Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly on the right when I took the shot.

Here is the Pondhawk out in the open.

I thought I was seeing Monarch's flying around the same lake where the Sulphurs were, but thanks to Rose's blog this past week, I realized this was a Viceroy instead of a Monarch! A bit torn up, but the extra black line on the bottom wings is still visible.

Sky and water.....SkyWatch Friday

It's SkyWatch Friday! The only pretty sky we've had this week was last Monday when we went to the Blue Grass stripper pit lake area. Sky and water, clouds and lily pads
Little island in the clouds

A dragonfly finds an island to land on

We saw three ducks. I'm not sure what they are. I can see a little hint of blue under one wing, but they didn't look like Mallards...unless they are young? Teals?

Very scruffy looking about the head. You can see the little blue touch here if you enlarge the photo.

They swam off to hide in the lotus pads under the trees....can you find them?

For more SkyWatch shots from all over the world, click on the icon on my sidebar.

What was in your sky this week??
Join in the fun!