I am starting to use the terms Leps (Lepidoptera — An Order of insects containing about 180,000 butterflies and moths)  and Odes (Odonata — An Order of carnivorous insects containing about 5,900 dragonflies and damselflies) as shorthand ways of titling these flying creatures.

Butterflies:  Rich Cavasin’s 5 Families of Ontario butterflies has about 48 photos of Slippers, 8 Swallowtails, 13 Whites and Sulphurs, 34 Gossamer-wings, and 50 Brushfoots in his Butterflies of Ontario website.   I’ve photographed and identified about 1/4 of them over the last couple of years.  A good exercise for an aging brain!   Once I’ve ID’d a butterfly I usually go to BAMONA to learn more about it. BAMONA includes verified sightings of 114 species of butterflies in Ontario (butterfly > Canada > Ontario in its Regional Species Checklists)

I’ve barely started with moths.

Dragonflies and Damselflies:  Ontario Nature Magazine list 27 species of dragonflies and 21 species of damselflies. Kurt Woods’ field reference Dragonflies of the North Woods list 102 species of Dragonflies alone.

Here are some photos made July 01-02 (almost two months ago!):

 

A skipper on Daisy Fleabane …

Various stages of bloom for one of the many potentilla species (cinquefoils) in our area …

Four-spotted skimmer perching on a “snakehead”  (top of a horsetail).

Same species …

Wild roses are blooming along the roadsides …

Grasshopper on a Dogbane leaf.

Two grasshoppers and a Monarch larva on a Milkweed plant…

Unknown  insect nectaring of an Oxeye daisy  (which is very very blue on  my monitor!)…

Skipper in two poses ….

I saw this American Redstart repeatedly dash out of the tag alders, hawk a dragonfly and then return to the tag alders.  I realized that it was finding protein for its hatchlings, so I waited for a while.  I was rewarded by seeing the bird jump up onto a dead tamarack to get a better look at the intruding photographer.

Meanwhile this Blanding’s turtle slowly made its way across the road — while the photographer got out of way to guard the spot from any traffic (On hwy 529).

Now, nearing the end of August the fall asters are showing in New Hampshire.

PS  The sunset at the top of the page is at Big Lake on Hwy 529.   A nice place.