SW thumbs, day 7

Yes, it did take a while to post "day 7" for the trip - and there's not too much to it. It was an easy, relaxing day. We went to Randall Davey Audubon Center again in the evening, and all of the day's photos are from there.



driving in, and our first butterfly of the evening

Yes, looking at the bug on the flower, we thought something was wrong - perhaps an assassin bug attached to the front of the butterfly. Nope. Perhaps earlier, but the little fellow was very much deceased. New butterfly for both of us though! Pahaska Skipper (Hesperia pahaska) is probably a flighty species when alive but, as with many other species, is quite cooperative when dead.



Pahaska Skipper (Hesperia pahaska)

The butterfly garden was also home to about half a dozen hummingbird feeders that were swarming with Broad-tailed and Black-chinned Hummingbirds (and one Rufous!) In the photos below, you can see the distinctly rufous vest of the Broad-tail (the bird in flight is a young male - you can see one spot of gorget/throat coloring). Ruby-throats are their eastern counterparts, with shorter tails and a green vest.



Broad-tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus)

For the ultimate in entomological coolness, one of our finds was Adejeania vexatrix - it's so cool that for a common name, it has "red Tachinid Fly" and it's so cool that it's even in a monotypic genus! Here's the bugguide page for it.





Another exciting find was a tri-colored bumblebee - blurry photo, sadly. And another bumblebee of sorts (R), I think tomorrow's pictures will cough up the white bee that was all over the place...



And for your human photo element of the day:



Day 8 will be a bit more diverse, in terms of culture and creatures!