Sundays at Little Walden

Ahhh, Sunday.  And even better, no getting up early Monday morning!

 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - I never get tired of seeing these.

 Long-tailed Skipper - I used to never see these and this year I have seen them all over.

Baby Deer - so excited to see this little cutie (and 2 older deer) as I was leaving.  Good thing my son was driving so I could take some pictures from the car.

Fridays at Reynolda Gardens and Tanglewood Arboretum

Yahoo!  10 glorious days off in a row!  And I had a wonderful start at RG Friday morning.

 Painted Lady - you can tell Painted Ladies from American Painted Ladies from the eyespots on the lower wing.  American Painted Ladies have 2 and Painted Ladies have 4.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Water Lily - love this one!

Then after RG, I swung by the Arboretum at Tanglewood.  I didn't stay too long though because it was a tad hot and the mosquitoes were eating me up!  Still saw some butterflies though.

I thought this was a Pearl Crescent, but after looking at my book I think it may be a Silvery Checkerspot.

Sundays at Little Walden

Another beautiful day at the Little Walden Nature Trail.

 Skipper

 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

 Teeny-tiny little butterfly.  I believe this is a Least Skipper.

Horace's Duskywing

Sundays at Little Walden

The Tanglewood Butterfly Garden and the Little Walden Pond are becoming a tradition for me on Sundays.  It's so peaceful there I love it.

There were tons of Skippers there today.  They especially seem to like the Lantana.  I should get more for my own garden.

These 2 are the same Skipper.  This is a Zabulon Skipper.  So bright and colorful!  I love when they open their wings.  They remind me of tiny little fighter planes.

I wasn't sure what type of Skipper this was, so I checked by book, then checked on-line, then rechecked my book, and I think this is one is actually a Zabulon also.  This is a female and the first one is a male.

I got a new lens (Olympus M Zuiko 45mm f1.8) for my camera (Olympus E-PL1) this week-end.  I have wanted this lens for a looooonng time!  By itself it is not the lens to use for butterfly shooting, but with my MCON-P01 macro converter, it's not too bad.  It takes some getting used to, I am used to zooming in and out whenever I need too and the new one is a fixed length.  But so far I am really enjoying it.  All the photos from today were taken with this lens.

I even got to use it when I got home and had a visitor in my own butterfly garden.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

2 Days at Tanglewood Butterfly Garden

I went to the Tanglewood Butterfly Garden (the free one!) Saturday, but it rained on me before I got any butterflies.  I did see this cool bug.  Cool, but I hope he didn't get any of the butterflies.

Assassin Bug

Then I went back Sunday, and I'm glad I did.

 Pearl Crescent

Spicebush Swallowtail

Teeniest Tree Frog I have ever seen, he was smaller than a nickel.  So cute!

Happy 4th of July!

Well, a day late.  Didn't make it to Tanglewood for the fireworks last night, so I went today to see some butterflies.

My first Long-Tailed Skipper!!  In the picture below you can see the upper part of the body is a beautiful green-blue color.

There were tons of Pearl Crescents today.

My fave of the day.

Tiger

Sorry no 'Fridays at Reynolda Gardens' post this week.  It was too hot to go at lunch, so I decided to go after work again, but did not take into account that it might actually rain on me!  Of course I went anyway, but no butterflies were to be found.  There's always next week!

It's been pretty hot and humid this whole week-end, but today I decided to go to the Tanglewood Butterfly Garden, and it was worth it.  I got my first Eastern Tiger Swallowtail of the season!

 Looks like she has been nipped at.  This is a female, they have more blue near the bottom of their wings.

Then on my way to the car, I saw this Pearl Crescent flitting around the clover.

Little Walden Nature Trail

There is a little known trail at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons called the Little Walden Nature Trail.  I say this because in the time since I discovered it I have only seen a handful of people there.  Surely there would be more people visiting if they knew how beautiful and peaceful it was there.  But then maybe it would not be so peaceful! There are also a couple of gardens - a butterfly garden and the AIDS Memorial Garden.  The trail itself goes around a pond and then into the woods where it passes a little stone building (I have no idea of the origin of the building, but I love it!) and down to a creek.  To get to the trail, you don't go into the main Tanglewood entrance, it's the entrance right across from Harper Road and then take the first left.  And you don't have to pay 2 bucks to park!

Silver-Spotted Skipper

Eastern-Tailed Blue

This was taken a few weeks ago.  I was walking around the pond and this little guy kept flitting around me so I held out my hand and he landed.  Good Luck!  I have never seen one of these before and not sure exactly what it is.  I think some sort of Elfin.

Late Mother's Day Outing

Didn't make it to Tanglewood last week on Mother's Day because of the rain, but this Sunday was perfect!

These swallowtails don't like to keep their wings still, so I had to up my ISO and shutter speed to catch it.

Black Swallowtail

This is some type of skipper.  I always have trouble identifying skippers (well, except for Silver-Spotted).  I think this may be a Cloudywing.

Skipper

Also found this cool bug.  It was about 3 inches long.  I had no clue what it was, I had to look it up.

Eyed Elater Click Beetle