Lovely Autumn Visitors

There are still a lot of insect activity in the back field, especially little butterflies.

This Vivid Dancer male was a wonderful surprise, since I haven't seen any for several months.

Probably the heat (temperatures in the low nineties) for the past few days kept them in the garden.

Although I haven't posted many photos of monarch butterflies this year because our potted milkweed plants dried up early in summer, we have had monarchs visiting for the past couple of months. On average, we've observed five per day, flying around the garden. They are very fond of the Torch sunflower, which is a native of Mexico.

There are many Mylitta Crescents nectaring among the native plants.

This one, on a native buckwheat flower head, looks like it had a close encounter with one of its predators, perhaps a bird.

Here is one of many Umber skippers that visit the garden throughout the day.

It is sipping nectar from a blossom on our Pozo Blue sage shrub.