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:

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

Wildflowers are always spectacular in summer:











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)













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