Monarch and Red Admiral Butterflies at Beechwood / Don Valley: July 9, 2019

Sunny summer days always bring out the butterflies and one came so close that I photographed it on the back of one of our walkers:

Red Admiral

Here is a Monarch Butterfly on the plant that it eats and lays its eggs on: Common Milkweed:

Monarch Butterfly

Wildflowers are always spectacular in summer:

Field Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis)
White Campion (Silene latifolia)
Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Timpthy (Phleum pratense)
Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare)
St John’s-wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Deptford Pink (Dianthus armeria)
Staghorn Sumac (female flowers) Rhus typhina
Staghorn Sumac (male flowers) Rhus typhina
English Garden Snail on grape leaf

Park scenes:

This morning’s group:

Species list:  mallard, turkey vulture, belted kingfisher, tree swallow, gray catbird, American robin, blue-gray gnatcatcher, cedar waxwing, warbling vireo, yellow warbler, American redstart, red-winged blackbird, northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting, American goldfinch, song sparrow.  (17 species)

Red-winged Blackbird (male)
Red-winged Blackbird (female)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Tree Swallow
Mallard with chicks
Mallard with chicks
chicks
Cedar Waxwing
American Goldfinch
Song Sparrow
American Robin (after bath)
American Robin (juvenile)

NATURE POETRY

Into My Own

 
ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
 
I should not be withheld but that some day        5
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
 
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track        10
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
 
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true. – Robert Frost

Miles Hearn

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