A Garden Month (to 24 Aug 2019) Pictures follow Even back in late July some end-of-summery things were already being noticed such as a small group of Waxwings taking berries from the Dogwood bushes on a hot and windy day … the sort of day on which it is perfect for Japanese Beetles to [...]
Garden Creatures The sun at just the right angle illuminated a horizontal band of white "fluff" in a Pagoda Dogwood tree and it warranted a better look. At first appearances one thinks of Tent Moth caterpillars but this is the wrong sort of tree. Closer inspection found that most of the affected area [...]
This and That Coming back from a walk we found a Banded Hairstreak butterfly (Satyrium calanus) on the "other" sort of milkweed (Asclepia tuberosum). They only open their wings to fly away but the upper surface isn't much more colourful than this. ** Not bad photo for one taken with an iPhone, albeit it [...]
Very Tiny Bees A very trending topic, as they say, at the moment is how to encourage pollinator species not to go extinct die to habitat loss, insecticidal sprays and climate change. This something we are hastily in favour of. Trouble is, when we think about pollinators we usually think [...]
Text here Painted Lady Vanessa carduis Starting to appear in the garden now the June heat is beginning to build up Text here Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Papillio canadensis Another garden visitor - also seen today, but not photographed, a Black Swallowtail (Papillio polyxenes) [...]
Polygonia comma - Eastern Comma Butterfly Appeared in the wildlife garden late afternoon and spent some time flying around the pool, settling here and there as it took the fancy. Several times alighted on the bark of a maple tree - see comment below about sap feeeding. Generally uncommon, the Eastern Comma is rarely [...]
Time for a short update to the wildlife garden notes … some recent observations: Firstly, after 20 years in the garden we have finally recorded the visit of a chipmunk that was, what else, investigating the ground under the bird feeders. Interestingly, a recent discussion on a town residents' Facebook group was about recent [...]
Polyomattus icarus Although there are a dozen or more native hairstreak butterflies in southern Quebec, the one we seem to get most regularly in the garden is the European Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) that arrived in Canada not many years ago in the vicinity of Mirabel airport to the north of city and has [...]
Monarch caterpillar on common milkweed (with video) Surprisingly active larva working it's way through the flowers of a common milkweed (Asclepis syriaca) in the garden We are seeing quite a number of monarch butterflies this year on the milkweed patches in our garden as well as on the town milkweed garden and in the [...]
Locust Underwing Moth - Euparthenos nubilis I found this large (approx 4cm) moth on common milkweed flowers in the garden and it had the good nature to stay while I dashed for a camera. Initially I thought this a Catocala (underwing) species, but try as I might - and being mentally "stuck" on that genus [...]