In this update of the Rusty Patch Garden, we’ll start with the Orange Sky Day. Northern Ontario is burning, and the winds brought that smoke to our sky. During the worst of it, I wore my N95 mask (handy, those) and went outside to see the insects.
It was so eerie. I noticed more moths than normal during the midday, that’s how much the smoke darkened the skies. I felt awful for the insects – if wildfire smoke is harmful for us, I imagine it’s like sand in the gears of their bodies.
It was also the first day I saw the Primrose Moth, the yellow and pink visitor of the Ontario native Evening Primrose. It’s a biennial so I didn’t see any blooms last year. I’ve got a couple this year, but a deer chomped the blooms of the first one, possibly moth-and-all.
Speaking of moths… check out the camouflage on the first one, looks just like lichen.
Because they are so well hidden and so easily started, it’s not easy to photograph moths. But I persist.
A Cabbage White butterfly, a Skipper, and Monarchs.
One of my best Dragonfly photos. I often ask them if I can photograph them – I do this so they can know I am there before I accidentally startle them, but maybe it works. I find they will sometimes give me a better angle if I ask nicely.
Have never seen that white and black one before. Also featuring the Bronze Jumping Spider, and a tiny orbweaver and her billion babies (potato bug for scale).
So beetles are the most common animal of ANY kind on Planet Earth, maybe you’ve heard this before. But did you know that flies are the most common animal in the Americas? Always so much to learn.
Leafcutter bees with their fuzzy striped bellies – they do not let you get close the way Bumblebees do.
I think this is a Bramble Mason Wasp – it’s about the size of a fingernail.
The Great Black Digger Wasps are finally home. Last year they basically camped on the Swamp Milkweed (shown), to the point that no other insects would visit it (except Monarchs). But this year they are more generalist, making the rounds of the garden for variety. They look scary and sound scary but they are very gentle creatures.
Seeing lots of these buggos, I enjoyed watching it experience the world through its antennae.
TWO female Red Winged Blackbirds! I had to stop feeding the birds in hopes they would eat some of the garden pests like the Japanese Beetles. I did give them a little treat the other day though.
After getting a lot of bad photos of this hawk, I finally took these. What a beauty.
Watching that first Grey Squirrel flick its tail in the Golden Hour light was pretty entrancing. It amazes me that animals know how the light hits them – birds are the same, they will walk into the light and show off their iridescence.
This is the deer with the weird white lump. It looks like hard pus squeezing through a hole in the skin. I also saw a fly on it. I thought it may be a blowfly, but I’m too much of a coward to looks up photos of blowflies to confirm. Anyone know? Also, that’s Jewelweed in its mouth.
Before and after shaking the rain off! It’s so FLUFFYYYY!
OKAY THANK YOU FOR LOOKING BYEEEE
kathleen may 
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