Daily Archives: August 1, 2021

Eurytides marcellus (Zebra Swallowtail)

Eurytides marcellus (Zebra Swallowtail)

Eurytides marcellus (Zebra Swallowtail)

After spending a few hours at McKee-Beshers, we stopped at Rocklands Farm for a little while. It was closing soon and we didn’t stay long but I took a few pictures, including this zebra swallowtail Eurytides marcellus on Janis’ buddleia. I’m pretty sure this is the first of them that I’ve seen and definitely the first I’ve photographed. It’s really a striking butterfly, with the bright red on the underside of it’s wings. I was really happy to get this photo. As for the rain that had been coming down fairly heavily when we left home, the roads were drying up by the time we got out here and by the evening the sky was totally clear.

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Sunflowers at McKee-Beshers

Cathy Amidst The Sunflowers

Cathy Amidst The Sunflowers

It started raining about mid-morning and we weren’t sure about going out but decided we’d go regardless. We drove to the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area, which we’ve never visited before. They have four fields that they plant with sunflowers, although only two of them were planted this year. I don’t know if that’s normal or not. Sunflower area #4 was the more spectacular of the two (the weeds were taller than the sunflowers in field #2). We saw a few male (and a lot of female) indigo buntings in the field, which was really nice. There were also a lot of gold finches and cardinals on the flowers, as well as butterflies. We walked all the way around field #4 as well as near the ponds on the way to field #1. That field was planted with corn, but we actually enjoyed the ponds quite a bit, with their wildflowers, etc. Highly recommended.

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