Cloudless and cool. A red-spotted purple and a silver-spotted skipper work adjacent bergamot heads, whose tubes are beginning to dry up.
skippers
Silver-spotted skippers work the last dame’s-rocket, and a day-time cricket begins to chirp. I slap myself in the chest to kill a mosquito.
A butterfly morning. Silver-spotted skippers chase through the dame’s-rocket while red-spotted purples contend for supremacy over the porch.
A black leaf-footed bug squats head-down on a porch post. Two silver-spotted skippers circle and chase, eponymous spots glinting in the sun.
Overcast and quiet. A silver-spotted skipper drinks from the bergamot, threading the thin purple tubes with its proboscis and leaning in.
Wood thrush and cardinal song. A male hummingbird chases a silver-spotted skipper off the beebalm, then retreats to a dead branch to preen.
The clouds finally thin out at mid-morning. An orange skipper passes over the thin-bladed grass to settle on the sunny half of a dock leaf.