Musk Thistle And Bumble Bee In The Wasatch Mountains
This morning, I'm sharing a simple image of a Musk Thistle and a bumblebee that I photographed two days ago in the high country of the Wasatch Mountains.
This morning, I'm sharing a simple image of a Musk Thistle and a bumblebee that I photographed two days ago in the high country of the Wasatch Mountains.
I'm sharing four Common Buckeye butterfly photos this morning. These images were taken at beautiful Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oklahoma.
I got lucky at one rabbitbrush when I found a Clouded Sulphur butterfly nectaring on what I believe is a Rubber Rabbitbrush.
Of the hundreds of White-lined Sphinx moth photos I took two days ago I picked three to share today of the moth feeding on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.
Yesterday I went out to Antelope Island for the first time since April and I took hundreds of Rufous Hummingbird photos plus some of the rising sun.
Today I am sharing some of the dragonflies and butterflies I've found at Bear River MBR in the summer.
Two days ago in between taking Willow Flycatcher photos in the Wasatch Mountains I took blooming Common Mullein images because they were nearby.
This is a female Great Spangled Fritillary, a butterfly species that can be abundant in the Wasatch Mountains at this time of the year.
Last week I photographed a fritillary butterfly photobomb a Two-tailed Swallowtail butterfly as it nectared on a Showy Milkweed high in the Wasatch Mountains.
When I returned home and could view my images on a large screen I was able to identify this swallowtail butterfly as a male Two-tailed Swallowtail.
I took my first Black-chinned Hummingbird of the year photos in the middle of May but it wasn't until the end of the month that I took some that I liked.
A while back I came across some butterfly photos that I had taken on July 19, 2015 that I hadn't processed or identified so recently I went about finding out what species of butterfly I had photographed.
Female Broad-tailed Hummingbirds do all the nest building, incubating, feeding and rearing of their young while they are here during their breeding season.
I'd forgotten about this Painted Lady butterfly I photographed in August of 2017 that I found while photographing hummingbirds on Antelope Island State Park.
Last year I saw an abundance of Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies in the Wasatch Mountains, it seemed that I could easily spot them flitting about or nectaring on thistles but this year I noticed that these and the numbers of other species of butterflies are way down in numbers
Even though I am primarily a bird photographer I can't resist photographing other subjects especially if those subjects have wings so when I saw a White-lined Sphinx moth yesterday I simply had to focus on it for a bit.
Just a short post today with a photo of a male Broad-tailed Hummingbird getting nectar from an unknown wildflower, or at least it is unknown to me.
The Black Twinberry Honeysuckles weren't even in bloom quite yet yesterday in the Wasatch Mountains when I spotted this male Broad-tailed Hummingbird hovering near some to get nectar.
I photographed some of the cutest, fuzzy Bee Flies in the world this week nectaring on Rabbitbrush and Curlycup Gumweed in the Stansbury Mountains of the West Desert.
I saw plenty of Western Branded Skipper butterflies nectaring on blooming rabbitbrush in both the canyons I explored yesterday morning and I can't resist, nor do I want to, photographing wildflowers and butterflies.
Last year I found plenty of Monarch Butterflies on the Rocky Mountain Bee Plants on Antelope Island and they were a delight to photograph as they fluttered around going from flower to flower sipping nectar from the delicate blossoms.
Last week while I was up in a canyon in the Wasatch Mountains I spotted a female Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly nectaring on a Musk Thistle so I felt I had to take photos of she sipped the nectar of the flower.
This is a Common Checkered-Skipper and can be found in most of the U.S., some southern parts of Canada and northern Mexico.
Rocky Mountain Bee Plants are blooming all over the Salt Lake Valley right now and those beautiful, spider-like flowers are attracting hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, bees and a host of insects.