I've been seeing a lot of monarchs and a lot of caterpillars this month. Keep planting milkweed, they will come! Both this caterpillar and this newly emerged adult were in new plantings around the just-completed Welcome Center at FDR Park in Philadelphia.

Funny thing about this photo - not only did I have the audacity to post it as an observation on #iNaturalist, but *multiple* people were then willing to confirm the ID as a Luna Moth. It was in shade on an overcast day way ahead of me on a wooded path, and even with my zoom lens this is all I got...

Darwin and so many other people have had a hypnotic fascination with beetles. Look, I get it, I totally get it. Common green June beetle, Washington Avenue Green, Philadelphia. #beetles #nativeinsects

Red Admiral butterfly on Cutleaf Coneflower. Senate Street, Philadelphia. #nativeplants #butterflies #pollinators

Leafcutter bee on Butterfly Milkweed. Sister Cities Park, Philadelphia. #nativebees #urbanbees

Munchkin barn swallow gives the camera a withering side-eye. John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, June 20, 2025.

Spring! I've been out-of-my-mind busy, with unexpected family crises popping up amid the usual gardening frenzy. Nevertheless I'm hoping to get out for the #iNaturalist City Nature Challenge this weekend. So many nesting robins, so little time... (seen here in the streetery at Grace Tavern)

I'm more of a bee and butterfly watcher than a birder, but I do try to identify interesting migrants that I see in Philly. Saturday was the first time I saw a Virginia Rail in the city - and I saw two of them! One in a park, and one on a curb near my home. Neither at all an aquatic environment.

Happy Year of the Snake! Here's one of the wee snakes that live in the alley behind my Philadelphia row house - Storeria dekayi, or Dekay's brown snake. These absolutely-no-danger noodles are happy in urban environments, eat worms and slugs, and like to hide in rock crevices or maybe flowerpots.

Hello, police? I'd like to report a robbery. What was taken? Well, some percentage of the red wigglers in my worm bin...

Such an angelic face...but behind it mayhem, always mayhem.

I get a lot of feline help in everything I do.

Two Cabbage White butterflies doing what comes naturally on Smooth Blue Aster. Julian Abele Park, Philadelphia, PA.

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird at Beach Plum Farm, West Cape May, NJ.

If you see this, post a butterfly to celebrate 10 million users on Bluesky.

A picture from my garden, taken some past June. Of the #nativebees I see in my urban Philly neighborhood, leafcutter bees are some of the most ubiquitous. They like #milkweed flowers quite a lot: here's one foraging on the Common Milkweed that grows in the alley behind my rowhouse apartment.