I know in my head we need the winter cold but my heart longs for the days of warm sunshine and growing things...

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I raise Monarchs, but this past summer I raised an Amaerican Painted Lady. :O)

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Beautiful pictures!

Beautiful Pictures! Love that scabiosa very pretty!
Beautiful gardens ~
Bgrow_gardens

The only guest I could get a shot of this summer...
{{gwi:349869}}From 2010 garden shots

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OOOps, I forgot this guy...

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Here are a couple of visitors I had in my garden:

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Happy New Year everyone!
Rhonda

These are not from this year, but they are good examples of the tough lives that urban butterflies have! Chewed up, battered, and beaten, they manage to persevere, and share their beauty ...

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PV

Beautiful pictures! Lots of WS'ers who love the bees and butterflies on this forum! :)

Pvick, your urban butterflies aren't the only ones that get tattered and beaten up - this old-timer showed up in August. They are survivors! On Liatris ligulistylis (WS'n 2008) -
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This much fresher Monarch is probably one of ones I raised this summer, on the Zinnias, which are direct sown.
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WS'n Rudbeckia 'Cappucino' and Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) WS'n 2008/9
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Lobelia cardinalis (cardinal flower) - WS/n 2009; the hummers LOVE this plant although I haven't got a good picture of them on it as yet.
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Honeybee on tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) -
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Fantastic pictures!

I need to plant more butterfly magnets, I don't see very many here, but I do get my fair share of other guests:
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Some, I could do without:
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Some, I love from any angle:
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These guys cheer me up big time:
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And even on New Year's Day when there isn't much gardening to do, they keep me grinning:
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With this being my third year wintersowing and my plant diversity getting larger... so has the wildlife diversity. We have had the most variety of butterflies and other insects and birds than ever before. I am also seeing things in greater numbers and at different times than before. We are in the burbs with almost no "natural" areas nearby and few neighbors who have even a single pot of flowers set out.

I have already posted several butterfly photos over on the butterfly forum in the "butterflies on ..." series of posts which are a lot of fun to look at when it is 10F outside :)

Here are some of my non-butterfly highlights from this year.

Common Yellowthroat Warbler

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Yellow Warbler

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LOTS of dragonflies like this Blue Dasher Skimmer

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A ton of bees and the like.

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Robin's nest in crab apple tree.

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Northern Oriole

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For the first time we had hummingbirds visit in June. Plus the regulars during late summer and fall migration stayed much longer than usual.
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We also had Cedar Waxwings visit on several occassions, which is another first!

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...and I just thought this squirrel with a solid white tail was pretty cute :)

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I've completely forgotten about these guest. We had a bird's nest in out beans! Those beans were just next to the door, so I constantly was scarrying a poor bird. I stoped using the door and had to go through the front door to get to the garden. Fortunately for birds we left for a vacation. After the return there were only empty shells and an empty nest. That was really cool!

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Not the greatest pictures since they were shot through the window screen but guests nonetheless:

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While I wasn't happy with the huge hole the green fella ate in my Melody Parfume rosebud, he was sort of cute all nestled inside for a nap after such a big meal. :)

Cheers,
Norabelle

Here are some of mine

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Paula

Wonderful pictures!! Can someone clue this computer dummie in on how to post pictures?

hibiscusfan, you need an online photo storage account, like photobucket, webshots, etc. Do you have one of those?

Karen

Hibiscus, usually people upload their photos to one of the photo sites that Karen mentions, and then copy and paste an html command from the photo site to display the image.

Molanic, your bird photos are great! Even when I'm only a few feet away from the hummers, I can't get clear shots. What camera do you use to get such nice bird shots?

Terrene, thanks! With the hummer picture I had a shutter speed of 1/400 sec. I had another pic with only 1/160 sec and the wings were moving so fast that they were just blur and barely visible. They are fast little buggers.

If you have bright enough light outside or a camera that lets you change the shutter speed, aperature, or iso it makes it easier. If I change one of those settings the camera will adjust the others to make sure it is exposed properly. I use a Canon S3 IS and I don't really ever use the auto settings. With the hummers since they move around a lot and there isn't much time to even focus with auto-focus I sometimes just focus on the flower they are favoring and wait for them to come back to finish the shot. I also like to use the rapid fire burst setting where you hold down the shutter button and it takes several pictures quickly in a row. Then I delete most of the pictures and only keep the best.

Many of my bird pictures are actually taken through a dirty window or screen because they seem to only come out after I have gone inside. They also like to seem to wait until I am washing dishes at the sink just to see how fast I can dry my hands and grab the binoculars or camera. Trying to use the auto-focus through a window can be frustrating, any little spot on the glass throws it off.

THESE ARE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES OF FLOWERS AND BUGS, I DID ENJOY THEM, THANK YOU !!! :)

Those are some really Beautiful pictures! Warbler, Foxes...! Wow!

Here's mine...
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Wee ant
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Bee in heaven in my macrocephala
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My fave..cicada
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Ahh! I so needed to see these! Just gorgeous!!!

Thank you so much for sharing!

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Wood pile serves a purpose even in summer ;)
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Love the pictures. Wendy2shoes, don't know what it is about
the cicada's, but they freak me out. Every summer I get at least
one in my backyard. I can never really see them, but I can hear
the wings flutter very loudly flying away from me when I get near.
Let me tell you, I'm running in the other direction when I see it.
Doesn't bother my sister. She tells me "Your bigger than that bug".
I'm going to try and be braver next summer, because I'm sure to
see one next year.

Gorgeous pics everyone!

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roper2008 - when I opened your post, I had a feeling that this are "my" pictures. See why..

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I also found another guest

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