Well, I think I just caught up on all the sleep I didn't get on vacation!
Back to the pictures!
So I saw a new bird on the feeder and I asked my aunt what it was. She said it was either a House Finch or Purple Finch. I looked at All About Birds and I think they look more like House Finches. We actually don't get these in Florida. As soon as my aunt said House Finch, I thought about all the pictures I'd seen on here and went "duh". But it's different when you see them in real life.
Goldfinches always remind me of Grandma's house. You can see why.
I had a few Black Swallowtails emerge while I was there. I got to show Grandma and her sister, my great-aunt. That was pretty fun.
Kept feeding the Unicorn caterpillars.
There were lots of butterflies at the cemetery where Grandpa is buried. The first one I saw was an American Painted Lady.
There were a bunch of Carolina Satyrs. I see them in Florida, but usually only when I'm in the woods. They're a woodland butterfly.
This Sachem was just hanging on the fence.
I saw a Skipper on some Queen Anne's Lace, but I quickly realized it was not okay. It was close to dying. No way would a Skipper let me pick it up. BAMONA said this was a Least Skipper. I can't swear I've ever seen one of them before. They're supposed to be the smallest skipper in North America. You can see it's pretty tiny.
There were actually two leaf hoppers on the underside of this milkweed leaf, but I scared one off.
There was a Spicebush Swallowtail in the milkweed, too.
I found a Carolina Satyr with its wings open! I wasn't even sure what it was at first because I never see them with their wings open!
This Tiger Swallowtail was missing about half its wings, but it was still having fun nectaring.
I leaned over to look at this plant and there was a skipper on it! BAMONA said they couldn't ID it.
Dad was yelling at me to hurry because it was thundering pretty bad, but I got this Eastern-Tailed Blue right near the truck.
Back at the house, my aunt seemed really excited when this Hairy Woodpecker showed up.
After missing the Eastern Towhee twice, I took about fifty pictures when it showed up again.
Another Black Swallowtail release. I've had a lot of males in this batch.
On the way home, I did release a female Black Swallowtail somewhere in North Carolina.
