Late August- Pollinators are in Abundance

Common Buckeye feeding on wild goldenrod.

It's still very hot here, but you can feel and see the seasonal shift to autumn.

I'll have to walk back an earlier statement about not seeing pollinators on the Goldenrod. The Goldenrod planted itself behind our big white butterfly bush. The week of Aug. 20th had butterflies, bees and wasps taking a taste of the nectar. The butterflies still seem to prefer the butterfly bush and lantana judging by the amount of time they visit these plants.

One of the many bee/wasps species that feed on the Goldenrod. These plants are around six feet tall. I'm considering

planting a shorter hybrid variety next door. They seem to do well during our dry periods.

A silver streak butterfly and humming bird moth are feeding peacefully.

This dark form Tiger swallowtail (always female) graced us with her presence on the butterfly bush and the lantana hedge. I love her irridescent blue.

The showy Eastern Tiger swallowtail. This is the official butterfly of North Carolina. They live in all 100 counties. (I never knew we had that many counties.) These yellow butterflies can be male or female.

Female Tiger Swallowtail- I know this because of her showy blue. This is one of the few instances in nature where the female is more colorful than the male.

Male Tiger swallowtail

The well known Monarch butterfly.

The spots on the body and the elongated blue marking on the underwing indicate this is a Spice bush butterfly. I have to confess that I get confused between the dark form Tiger swallowtails and the Spicebush Swallowtails. Finding the white spots on the body is probably the easiest identifier.

Fiery Skipper

Chrysalis- Maybe a future Tiger Swallowtail?

I hope to see this butterfly as he emerges. I didn't notice this until I was about to cut down the fennel stalk. I'm glad I saw the chrysalis before I did.

Aug. 31st was a gorgeous day here. The morning started in the sixties which is very unusual for this time of year. We were spared any damage from Idalia. One block of our neighborhood did lose power when a tree fell on the power lines last night. We had .40 inches of rain overnight which was definitely needed. August was a little rough with the heat, dryness and a 48 hour power outage courtesy of a thunderstorm wind bomb that only lasted a few minutes. I suspect that this windstorm damaged the tree that fell last night. There are still quite a few broken boughs around. I'm looking forward to September.

Happy gardening!