Good morning everyone on this beautiful rainy morning!  Well, the rain has stopped, at least temporarily, so I went outside to feed Sir George and Lady Pearl, plus their friend Henry, who was also here last year.  Henry isn’t quite as brave, but he will come down to the feeder while I’m out on the deck, providing I don’t stay too close to the feeder.  Much like Lady Pearl.  I can stand right beside the feeder with Sir George.  It smelled so nice and fresh outside this morning because of the rain, very spring like indeed.  But, they are forecasting this nice weather to change tonight and we could end up with 15cm (6 inches) of new snow by tomorrow morning.  Typical spring weather here in the north.  But our winter snow is nearly gone so this new snow should melt fairly quickly.  On the plus side, I don’t need to go anywhere the next few days, so the snow won’t really affect me.  I’m late with this today, sorry about that, but my internet was down again this morning so had to wait for it to start working again.

And now for some summer beauty with more of my favorite “country garden” flowers to enjoy…

And these beautiful hollyhocks are also a favorite for our local bees which come by daily to pick up some more nectar from these wonderful flowers.  I hope you don’t get tired of seeing them, but for me they truly are a great reminder of a “country garden”.

And there are so many different color variations in my landlord’s garden, with more that keep coming along due to the cross pollination from the bees, giving more new color variations all the time.

And there we have the beauty of flowers to start our day, or end your day, depending on where you live.  I hope you have a wonderful day, stay safe and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Darting Dragonflies!  These amazing acrobats of the insect world that are found in so many different colors, shapes and sizes.  Plus they are very beneficial to have around, especially if you want to sit outside in the evening and there are a lot of flies or mosquitoes around, then these dragonflies are a welcome visitor to have show up.  Many times they will arrive in groups of 3 or 4 or even a dozen or more.  I have sat outside in the evening and looked up to watch literally dozens of these dragonflies going back and forth in every possible direction looking for something to eat.  And they can change direction in a fraction of a second any time they want.  It is really quite something to watch them and knowing that because of them I can sit comfortably on my deck without having to worry about any pests around.

Here we have the white faced meadowhawk, a very common little dragonfly around here.  I showed this one before but was unnamed at the time.  These are around all summer from June to October.  They get to be about 1 1/2 inches (39mm) in length. They like to live around ponds, marshes, lakes, streams or just about any wet area.  The above pic is the male and the female is below.

And then we have a relative of these two, the autumn meadowhawk with a picture of the female below.

This meadowhawk likes basically the same habitat as the other but also enjoys being in a more wooded habitat as well.  It is active later into fall than other meadowhawks.  Oddly I never did see any males around, but saw numerous females.

Well, that is all for our look at dragonflies this week, I hope you enjoyed another view of these fascinating insects and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.