Nectaring

There is such activity and “buzziness” in the midday sun. Countless bees are nectaring from the hollow-stemmed Joe Pye weed. Wasps and flower flies are attracted to the nectar of bronze fennel flowers and the swallowtail butterflies have discovered the butterfly weed. On the pale pink blossom of Joe Pye weed there are too many kinds of bee for me to identify. I can differentiate the bumblebees, the honeybees, carpenter bees and metallic green sweat bees, but there are many more visitors of all shapes and sizes. I am a little disturbed not to have seen any monarch butterflies visiting the garden this summer. But the leaves of the common milkweed plant have been nibbled upon. The butterfly weed has only just bloomed and the sight of the spicebush swallowtails and an eastern tiger swallowtail heartens me. The cheerful sound of goldfinches delights me. They sit on the coneflowers and tug at the seed singing all along. I creep to get a good close up photo, but the birds always dash away leaving flower stems bouncing.

Mighty Joe Pye

Several Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium fistulosum) plants are providing an impressive 8-feet tall screen along the back fence. They have grown from tiny seedlings, which I bought in a six-pack from LINPI (Long Island Native Plant Initiative) a summer ago. The dusty pink blossom is a nectar source for bees of all shapes and sizes. The yellow tiger swallowtail butterfly seems to be particularly partial to this towering plant and I have also seen black swallowtails, Monarch butterflies, skippers and cabbage whites flutter and sip from the large round clusters of florets.

Yellow Tiger Swallowtail on Hollow-stemmed Joe Pye weed

Monarch butterflies also visit the seedlings of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Their distinctive, striped larvae have been seen eating the leaves, but for some reason they do not stay on the plant long enough to pupate. The same is true of the Laugher or Marbled Tuffet Moth (Charadra deridens) larvae, which are fuzzy with long, pale hairs. I have found them on the underside of the leaves of sunflower and canna lily, although their preferred food source is beech and oak.

A flash of yellow and sweet mellifluous chirping alerts me to goldfinches in breeding plumage pecking at Echinacea seed heads. Now for a sighting of the ruby-throated hummingbird! They must surely visit the fuchsia and cardinal flower when I am not around to see them.