Many Introductions

It’s my third visit to New Jubilee Forest.  We’ve just passed from the Flower Moon to the Long Rains Moon.  This was my first visit with no rain.  I wandered round the north side of the forest today, but didn’t make it to the river.  Two hours went by like nothing. I really got to see a lot of insects, hear some birds, and take photos of some beautiful plants in bloom.

I stopped to spend some time with the dogbane today; many insects were visiting its blooms.  Among them were a small black bee, a medium sized bee with thin horizontal white stripes across a black abdomen, a beetle with long outwardly curved antennae, and a small red & yellow fly that looked like a damselfly.  Elsewhere in the forest I saw two green lacewings. a few white admirals and some cool moths, including one of those ones with triangular wings that blend in perfectly with brown wrinkled leaves.

I heard least flycatchers, red-eyed vireos, black-capped chickadees, one or two ring-billed gulls, a song sparrow and a white-throated sparrow.

On my way back out of the forest, I startled a deer that had been feeding near the trail.