tufted loosestrife | Brtthome's Blog

I don’t use a compost pile anymore as I have had bear problems. So nowadays I return kitchen vegetable and animal waste back to “the bush” — a natural recycle. After that and a doggie walk, we spent an enjoyable afternoon idling along Jamot Lumber Road. This is some of what we saw:

The Monarchs are feeding on orange hawkweeds and laying eggs at the bases of common milkweed leaves.

Are these little flies feeding on something?

A yellow tufted loosestrife growing from the top of an altered beaver dam.

This is an amazing shot when you look closely! Click on it to see what the White Admiral has in the coil of its proboscis.

Here is a closeup from a photo taken 10 seconds after the above one.

Is it eating a grain of sand? Hint: See the last item on this list of Butterfly Garden Necessities.

Two good ID photos of the White Admiral:

I think that this is a Harris’s Checkerspot, Closyne harrisii.

Green bug on ox eye daisy …

This ruffed grouse was having a bath in the dust along the side of the road. Maybe it is molting.

Common cinquefoil …

This Sheep Laurel is blooming much later than the ones along Shebeshekong road.

Two Chalk fronted corporals … who, “readily approach humans to feed on the mosquitoes and biting flies that humans attract.”

Female above

Male below…

Pretty green bug on petals of blackberry flowers …

Back in Britt, the lilies in Diana’s flower garden are starting to bloom, to be resplendent on Canada Day.

And a Painted Lady on her (Diana’s) walkway…

This is a real feast: http://www.randysnaturephotography.com/butterfly_and_insect_index.htm

And it is a great reference for identifying most of the little critters we see in the air, foraging on flowers, holding on to perches and laying eggs all around us.

Worth looking at: https://www.chelseagreen.com/blogs/oxeye-daisy/

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An afternoon drive down Hwy 529 yielded some interesting scenery…

Yellow goatsbeard stayed open in spite of a light rainshower:

When you look closely (click on the photo) you can clearly see the anthers on this seed head of grass…

Patch of pink ladyslipper orchids, in a sphagnum bog just off of the rock dump north of Big Lake.

Viper’s bugloss being pollinated by a visiting bumblebee….

Cinnamon fern, named for its spore-bearing fertile fronds …

First (and only, so far) sighting of tufted loosestrife

The purple pitcher plant .6 km N of 529A is in mid-bloom.

Possibly a (ground?) crab spider of some sort waiting in ambush. It didn’t move at all.

I am now reasonably certain that the Monarchs are laying eggs on the yet-to-bloom milkweeds …

Another copious source of nectar for a variety of pollinators, including many butterflies … Spreading Dogbane.

“Potentilla simplex, also known as common cinquefoil or old-field five-fingers or oldfield cinquefoil, is a perennial herb.

Pollinators include mason bees, small carpenter bees, cuckoo bees, halictid bees, syrphid flies, tachinid flies, blow flies, and others. Less common pollinators are wasps and butterflies.”