And The Winner Is...

I played a game of creature contest yesterday. Here are the rules: take a walk in a park, photograph everything interesting, choose a favorite. The eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly above is the winner. Ta Da! Click to enlarge.

Congratulations eastern tiger swallowtail! See that band of blue spots? It identifies this one as a female.

This perky little summer azure butterfly is the runner up, ready to step in and fulfill the duties of winner if the tiger swallowtail is unable to do so. Congratulations summer azure!

End of August

I've heard people say that August is the Sunday of summer. 

Here's to the last Sunday of August 2018 and summer's end!

I've posted below a few favorite photos from my August blogs of years past. 

A great Egret coming in for a landing, trailing toes. Click to enlarge.

A monarch butterfly. 

Rolling hills of Northern New Jersey in August. 

A laughing gull line up. 

Honey bee drinking a drop of water from a leaf. 

A carpenter bee on milkweed flowers. 

A bullfrog keeping an eye on me.

Snow geese overhead. 

A bumblebee at work. 

A great black wasp. 

A summer azure butterfly with striped antennae.

A deer watching me watch him. 

A baby northern cardinal with punk hairdo. 

An elegant monarch butterfly caterpillar climbing upward. 

Happy Fourth of July !

A red milkweed beetle, Tetraopes tetrophthalmus. Click to enlarge. 

The white underside of a summer azure butterfly,  Celestrina neglecta.

And the blue highlights of a red-spotted purple butterfly,  Limenitis arthemis. 

Yay! Have a wonderful holiday! 

Summer Azure

I was walking on the sandy shore of the Delaware River in South Jersey right across from Philadelphia when I noticed this little butterfly sitting on a shell. The butterfly is the summer azure, Celastrina neglecta. If you click to enlarge you can see its proboscis extended and lying on the shell so I think it is obtaining moisture and perhaps minerals. Butterflies in its family Lycaenidae are well known for a behavior called puddling; gathering in muddy places to drink and obtain minerals from the soil. 

I usually see summer azures on flowers like this, but I guess they sometimes just get an appetite for seafood.