Lepidoptera

Today was much like yesterday, pretty and pleasant.  Bluebirds and a pileated woodpecker wanted breakfast.  Eventually I relented and put out bark butter balls.  One crow got the hang of it, but the others balked.  So a blue jay had to show up its cousins.   

A dark butterfly egged the wild cherry, which suggested it was a dark morph tiger swallowtail.  I saw a smaller brownish butterfly on a dogwood flower, but it got away.  Several skinks ranging from a skinklet that peeked out from the pool cover to red faced adults were awake.  Turtles basked on the lake snags. 

Like the bluebirds, there were brown thrashers around all day.  But unlike the bluebirds, I only saw one brown thrasher at a time so there were no fights.  Starlings came and fought over the remnant of the suet.  Even the titmice had suet.  In the late afternoon a white breasted nuthatch also wanted some of the rapidly disappearing suet. It was followed by woodpeckers and a Carolina wren. 

By mid afternoon the crescent moon was above the trees, but Eastward flowing haze and cloud wisps kept confusing the camera.  My best shots scarcely revealed the man-in-the-moon, much less craters.  One small fiddlehead finally came up on the Christmas fern.  Perhaps the Winter was not cold enough?  I found more mutant four petaled violets.  I think the fifth petal shrank rather than disappearing. 

A hummingbird moth worked around the money plant flowers, left to sample other flowers, then came back.  It was a Snowberry clearwing (Hemaris diffinis), the same as last Spring.  The moth was not the only lepidopteran visitor to the money plant.  A tiger swallowtail also enjoyed the nectar.  maybe I should try it?   

Speaking of hummingbirds, I spotted a patch of red across the yard and got excited only to discover it was the head of a red bellied woodpecker.  A male brown headed cowbird perched on the feeder hanger but did not partake.