Backyard Summertime Nature in New Jersey.
A Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Cosmos Flower in my wildflower meadow. Image taken with a Fuji X-T2 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec).

David's Images of the Day Photoblog
A Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Cosmos Flower in my wildflower meadow. Image taken with a Fuji X-T2 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec).

First Monarch Butterfly of the season on a Red Cosmos flower in my wildflower meadow. I have seen them along with yellow and black swallowtail butterflies the last few days, but finally found one that stayed in place long enough to have its picture taken.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly on a purple delphinium bloom. Bumblebee on a Sunflower bloom.


The Clearwing Hummingbird Moths appear to like the purple delphinium flowers in my backyard wildflower meadow.

We had a lot of rain last night. Good for the small wildflower meadows, and good for the few tomato plants that haven’t been nibbled by the deer. I did an early morning walkabout to view the wildflowers. I am still getting a lot of Poppy blooms, as well as Cosmos, Coreopsis, Zinnia, Blackeyed Susan, and others that I don’t know the ID. Some of the Sunflowers are starting to bloom (those that the deer didn’t find). I also saw that the Burma (Bottle Gourd) bloomed last night with a big white flower.
The kitchen renovation is progressing. All but one of the IKEA cabinets have been assembled. Still lots of work to do. After the contractor left, I went back out to the wildflower meadow and saw a Clearwing Hummingbird Moth. It made my day knowing that the work to create the trial wildflower garden/meadow was worth it…
