Great Spangled Fritillary Party in the Barrens!

It was my first time back to my favorite little pond in the Barrens in more than a week. They've been paving all of the little side roads around where we live, and the roads were sticky, stinky, and tarry. I figured the recent rains may have settled it all down some, so I hopped on my bike and took off for the Barrens.

The ponds are dwindling in spite of recent rains, and my favorite one was full of fat, sassy tadpoles. I couldn't resist. I took a few out in my hand and held each one for a few seconds; took its picture. No, don't do this, I'll say. But *I* do. I can't help myself. I must fondle the tadpoles. Each one was inconvenienced for just a few seconds before it was slipped back into the water.

There are ghost pipes everywhere, with the recent rain and humidity. They rise up, white and ghostly, everywhere in these woods. For macro photography, it is harder than you might think to get all of the parts of the plant in focus at once. They are weird that way.

And as I came back out of the Barrens, an orange butterfly flew in front of me, and I snapped a few photos. Then I looked up, and - my goodness, I couldn't believe my eyes - the whole place was just SWARMING with orange butterflies!

I believe these are great spangled fritillaries, and there were probably two dozen or more on this stand of some kind of skinny native milkweed. It may have been the most butterflies I've seen all in one spot in several years!

The butterflies were zipping around, flittering and fluttering, landing on each other sometimes, and even sometimes fighting over the same spots. I took many, many photos, and stood there, blissed-out, simply watching and photographing the butterfly party!

My soundtrack song is this one: the Bee Gees, with Holiday.