I see a lot of Hump-backed Beewolves/Philanthus gibbosus hunting up nectar. This was the only time I’ve seen one catch a bee, which is the meat they feed to their young. There are some other Philanthus species, but until about month ago I’d never seen any of them. That’s when I ran into this Two…

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Last weekend’s raptor sightings. A rather painterly view of a Peregrine atop St. Mike’s. Digiscoping in the early morning. Passing Osprey in Windsor Terrace; I suspect the bird had just scouted Prospect Lake. Soaring Red-tail. Female American Kestrel.

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Two of our bigger butterflies: Black Swallowtail/Papilio polyxenes above and even larger the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail/Papilio glaucus below. With a passing Honeybee… Both of these butterflies are syphoning up nectar from big and tall Cup Plant/Siphium perfollatum flowers

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This Monarch was laying eggs on the underside of Common Milkweed leaves. Here’s one of the eggs she laid. Have you noticed how they prefer young milkweed plants? Most of the plants here had already gone to fruit, but the edges of this patch had some younger ones. At nearly the same time, I I…

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A Mud Fiddler/Minuca pugnax male showing who is boss. (That blue V on the carapace helps to separate these from the two other fiddler crab species in the region.)

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Epiaeschna heros is our largest local dragonfly. They’re usually zipping around, making them difficult to photograph, but occasionally they will hang like this. I’ve seen them a few times clinging to buildings and other structures. This one was at eye-level!

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By early August, most local breeding birds are done. But I saw this mewling Gray Catbird fledgling a couple of days ago. Here’s one of the parents, being kept busy shoveling food into the youngster. Could be a part of a second brood.

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A pair of Osprey circling above 1st Avenue. A closer look at one of them:

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I’ve mentioned before how I don’t ever find any current Organ-pipe Mud-dauber nests in Green-Wood, whose mausoleum exteriors, with all their nooks and crannies, are full of evidence of old nests. But here’s a trio I found on Saturday. Hurrah! Any haunter of mausoleums is bound to see metallic blue-green cuckoo wasps (Chrysididae) like these…

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From somewhere nearby, the female Organ-pipe Mud-Dauber gathers a ball of mud. She flies back to the nest, where the male can just glimpsed inside the developing tube. Rather unusually, the male of this species stick around to protect the young. There are parasitic flies and wasps eager to get into the spider-stocked chambers within…

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