Date: 07/25/2015

Number: 4

Just a quickie note..

Hubby and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday (7-26). Grandma took the kids for the weekend. On Saturday, we went to Matthaei Botanical Gardens (MBG) and took a leisurely stroll in the prairie (instead of the Children’s garden as always ), and walked along the pond. I found two 5th instars, 3 males (one patrolling an obvious flightpath near the pond) and saw one female repeatedly ovipositing on A.s. pods. I put the photos on flickr, with captions and a description of the day below the title. https://www.flickr.com/photos/candy__kasey/sets/72157656402671262/with/20029270766/ Got some good shots of a 5th notching out the petiole and then feeding.

We did the annual “Things With Wings” event on Sunday at MBG, with a heat index of 90-92 and 5 hours outside. The event was scheduled 1-4pm, but as always people came to visit us as we set up, and we let them do so. (Many couldn’t stay for the event due to the excessive heat, kids soaked with sweat). Despite this, we saw 400 people in 3 hours by Kasey’s count, and the event coordinator counted 500. I drank three water bottles full of water and coconut water in that time.

Today (7-27)--I was just sterilizing two of my giant walk-in tents, setting them on my neighbor’s sunny lawn to dry. It’s hot, 82F, but feels a lot warmer. Summer finally showed up the last 3 days. As I was rinsing a tent, a lady monarch came over, fluttering around my chest—crud, I just sterilized the tent! I gently shooed her away, and she went off to nectar. I realized she had probably seen the flowers on my shirt, and was trying to nectar. I decided to fill my kids’ kiddie pools, so they would be waiting when I bring the kids home today. As I filled the second pool, lady monarch was hovering around me, flying over the pool. So I put on the mister, and to my shock, she immediately lifted off a swamp milkweed blossom and came straight at me, then made a quick turn and entered the mist spray from the side. She came quite close to the mister itself, where the force of water was stronger, and got blasted. I could hear the water hit her. I tried to muffle my alarmed squeal, but my mouth gaped. She righted herself, staying and fluttering in the mist, then landed on some A.i. that the mist was falling on. I kept the mister on her for at least a minute. She finally flew out of the mist, and up into the shade of a tree. A few minutes later she came back down and began laying eggs.

Holy cow…

Ann Arbor, MI

Latitude: 42.3 Longitude: -83.8

Observed by: candy
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