My Echinacea patch is a bird, bug and butterfly circus at the peak of its blooming. I don't often get reasonably clear images of the wilder acrobatics, but yesterday and today I got some that were not too fuzzy.
A pair of American Goldfinches came around today. I don't do bird feeders any more in the summer because rattlesnakes started camping out there to catch birds that searched the ground underneath the feeders for seeds. But the goldfinches love the Echinacea. I got these by taking the photo from inside the house:
Two spicebush swallowtail butterflies were doing some kind of ritual in this one. It all started in the Echinaceas but they ended up by my planters:
And here's a pipevine swallowtail, with a bumble bee and a silver-spotted skipper coming in for a landing on the same flower:
[Photos by Cathie Bird]
