SAW TEN SPECIES OF BUTTERFLIES SATURDAY, MOST ON MILKWEED FLOWERS

Gray Copper butterfly.

Black phase of a female Tiger Swallowtail.  Tiger Swallowtail are normally yellow and black, but this one is the uncommon black phased female.  This is only the second time I have photographed this phase.

Red-spotted Purple.  Have never seen these on Milkweed.

Monarch and Red Admiral on Milkweed flower.

Monarch on Milkweed flower.

Skipper.  Skippers have their own family: they are small and difficult to get down to a species.

Crescent butterfly, quite old and beat up. To view more of our photos click on June 2018 of any month desired.

Hackberry butterfly.

Great Spangled Fritillary.

Great Spangled Fritillary on Milkweed.

Meadow Fritillary.  The Meadow is about half as large as the Great Spangled Fritillary.

Monarch caterpillar on very fresh  Common Milkweed plant.  We have hundreds of milkweeds and Bobbie found 6 Monarch Caterpillars just this evening.  The overwintering ancestors left the mountains of Mexico months ago, laid their eggs in Texas of Oklahoma and then died.  The Texas/Oklahoma hatch makes it up here, lays their eggs and also dies.  The Caterpillar shown here may go farther north-lay it's eggs and in turn die.  The finial(I guess we would call it the 4th generation), are the ones that will fly all the way back to Mexico and start the cycle over again.  Quite a story.

A fungi we have not seen before growing on a spruce stump from a tree that blew down at our place 20 years ago.  The closest I can come to an ID is Yellow-red Gill Polypore.

Red-spotted Purple butterfly on our driveway.  Had a nice hatch yesterday. They spent much of their time sucking up minerals from dried up puddle bottoms.

Snapping Turtle and Painted Turtles on same log.  This Snapper is decent sized, but we once saw a true giant at least 3X bigger than this one in Albert Lea Lake.

Green Darner (male) Dragonfly.  Been trying to get a good photo of a blue male for years.

Prothonotary Warbler, Mississippi backwaters, Houston Co, Mn.  An ucommon(at least in Minnesota), little warbler that nest over water.

Indian Paintbrush.  We were pleasantly surprised to see these prairie type flowers blooming in a backroad ditch in Houston County.

Spiderwort

Puccoon

Canada Anemone

Wild  Geranium, Forestville St. Park