Monarch!

I saw my 2nd Monarch of the year today.  In spite of lacking the discipline to count species, I know it is only #2.  They're rarely beeing seen in this part of the country this year.   I was thrilled to see it and spent almost my entire lunch hour just trying to get a good photo.  It was extremely shy, staying on the far side of the butterfly bush, away from the sidewalk, road and the traffic buzzing past.

After I had enough of Monarch #2, I headed over to the Ashland Community Gardens to see what might be found in their butterfly garden.  There was one nice Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a couple of other smaller species.

Not a bad lunch break for beautiful butterflies!

Monarch (female)

Peck's Skipper

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

American Goldfinch (male)

I've nicknamed it "Jail Bird".

Tawny-Edged Skipper (left) and Cabbage White (right)

 Sunflower

 (proof of the gorgeous day we are having and the main reason the Goldfinches hang around ACG)

Smart Jail Bird

PS.  I started my morning at Wildwood Cemetery, looking for birds.  I had just given up on birds and thought I'd add some more gravestone photos to Find-A-Grave's web site, when a doe walked across the far end of the road I was on, followed soon after by one little fawn.  I wasn't able to get a good photo, but here they are anyway.  I wish I knew how the mother communicated to her baby that it should go hide in the woods, but that's just what it did.  She then left the area, and stood near the woods on an adjacent road, watching me and waiting for me to leave.  Good Mama.