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A Butterfly Birthday

To celebrate my birthday yesterday we went to Milwaukee and visited the butterfly museum, among other places. How enchanting to sit in a large room and have large unusual butterflies flying all around you, even landing on you! A video:
Some butterfly photos:





In addition to yesterday's trip, we spent Monday and Tuesday doing nature-related things for my birthday. On Tuesday we went biking through a state park. So relaxing to be able to bike on the paths, not worry about cars, and take in all the breathtaking scenery.  It was abundant with birds, butterflies, and frogs. My favorite part was a section I called the "sea of gold":



Monday we went apple picking (some pictures of the apples and what they're made into coming later), and then hiking/picnic in a portion of land owned by the nature conservancy. It was full of migrating Monarchs, feeding on the abundant milkweed:


 Anyone know what caused this? It is bark, not any kind of nest.
 A pretty thistle:
 and a hint of Autumn:

It was such a perfect birthday week!

Comments

  1. SissySeptember 18, 2011 at 1:57 PM

    Happy Birthday! What a wonderful way to spend your day. Best wishes for another happy and healthy year!
    I am surrounded by the "sea of gold", here in my neighborhood. It is incredible, the gold color in the fields!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2011 at 8:20 PM

    Now that's just my kind of walk, I love a field full of goldenrod and all the other wildflowers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. SherrySeptember 20, 2011 at 9:57 PM

    Thank you! I knew it had to be something other than ragweed, because I was fine biking/walking through it, and would have been swollen up like a balloon otherwise. The gold in all the fields is so prominent this year - maybe more than usual. I was on the Metra the other day and noticed it as well.

    ReplyDelete

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