More colorful wings

I can't seem to stop taking pictures of butterflies this year.

There are so many of them.

Here's one I hadn't identified before.

You might think it looks like the female Tiger Swallowtail that I posted before.

This butterfly doesn't have the little spiky tails that the Swallowtail has.

There are small reddish orange dots on the tops of its wings, and when it closes them up you can see dots on the bottoms of the wings.

And if you could see it in person it seems to change colors from brown to purple in the light and when it opens the wings wide the blue is luminescent.

This one is a Red-Spotted Purple Butterfly.

Got Milk (Snake, that is)?

One morning I found a tiny snake in the pool.

It was thinner than a pencil and about as long as one.

I dipped it out and took a quick picture of its pattern so I could identify it. Milk Snake.

Fluttering by

This summer has been full of butterflies - many more than we usually see.

I have been trying to take pictures of the different kinds of butterflies.

If you click on the pictures to make them bigger you can see them better. Many of the butterflies are small - like this silver-spotted Skipper.
They move quickly and it is hard to get a picture of the little ones.

Some of the butterflies are big and spectacular.
It is a little easier to get their pictures.

See the stripes on the body? This is the Tiger Swallowtail.

The points on the tail are what make it a Swallowtail.

They love the Joe Pye Weed. They flit around to other flowers but they always seem to come back to these tall pale purple blossoms down by the pond.

The top one here is a male and the bottom one a female - she has blue spots that he doesn't.

This is also a female Tiger Swallowtail- Isn't she lovely?

We found this winged creature resting in the woods.

Usually you only see it by night.

See the feathery antennae?

This isn't a butterfly at all.

It's a Luna Moth.

Wish you were here to look at these lovely creatures with me!