Summer allows me to get out, sometimes for just a few minutes a day and sometimes for much longer. The critters that are out are not too rare, but can be quite spectacular never the less.
These cabbage white butterflies were mudding on the canoe access at Big Creek State Park.
The same location has a small patch of swamp milkweed which this monarch is visiting. For several years this location has produced spectacular blooms of this common wildflower. This year the flowers are much smaller and sparser than in the past, due to some combination of excessive vegetation management or early summer drought.
The Ledges State Park near Boone, Iowa has a sizable population of ebony jewelwing damselflies.
My back yard wildflower/weed patch continues to get better. Silver spotted skippers have been hanging around all summer, and they are quite entertaining.
This longhorn bee looks like Melissodes bimaculatus, but I can’t be sure.
Gorgone checkerspots are normally sort of rare, but they have been hanging around my back yard all summer. I have yet to find eggs or caterpillars on the black-eyed Susan plants, but I understand that they are a host plant.
Summer keeps sliding away…
The roused bear 