... Courtship in the poo

Fantastic nature walk this morning with loads of butterflies, dragons, damsels, and birds. The butterfly experts on the trip were very excited to see these two Great Spangled Fritillaries, both in beautiful form as they danced around on some dung. Yep, for those of you who think (as I did) that butterflies only hang out on flowers...well, some much prefer some nice poo to flit around on instead! No matter, they are still stunningly beautiful and it is always so cool to see two butterflies together.

We walked along wooded trails, fresh water marshes, lakes and fields. We heard a Bittern off in the marsh, but he wouldn't show himself. They are rare birds in our part of NJ so lots of excitement about that. We also saw a beautiful big pileated woodpecker having his way with some bugs on a big tree- the pictures were rubbish, so I didn't post them. However, some of the other winning shots today are posted in Flickr, if you would care to have a look...

The only surviving Mute Swan Cignet
Striped Soldier Beetles, having a love fest
Little Wood Satyr Butterfly
Widow Skimmer Dragon
Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly, the size of an American Dime
Northern Cloudy Wing Butterfly

Got home just ahead of a massive thunderstorm, which was good for me. Took a nice long nap and now ready to grill some lamb chops on the grill...

We are off to the NJ Botanical Garden (or High Point State Park...) tomorrow. I am looking forward to popping around all your journals to see what is going on in the four corners of the Blip World!

happy Saturday...