Lots of Butterflies this Summer and Fall

A story in the CBC news today strongly related what my husband and I had noticed and talked about many times this year. We hike often, and we walk a lot, in conservation and park areas all year. We remarked often about one thing that was so different this year, then last, and from many other past years too.

Last summer, there were very very few wild flowers. We normally saw our waterfront paths and conservation areas bursting with Dames Rockets, Jewel Weed, Flox, Touch Me Nots, and a number of other beautiful wild flowers. These flowers serve as a food source for so many insects and birds.

This year, we've had tons of rain, last year, barely any and everything was so dry. We barely had mosquitoes last year either, which I guess can also be bad, though we think it's great. Hence, this year, an abundance of wild flowers again! Not great for all the flooding many areas suffered, but good for the flowers, therefore bees, wasps, humming birds and also, the Monarch Butterfly!

We hope this weekend to get out for what may be the last big weekend for butterflies and humming birds. My husband has even seen a lot of them right outside our condo, the Monarchs.

My Favourite Shot from Summer-Maybe of All Time!

I decided, I wanted to get a photo of butterflies again, like I did in Ajax years back. I knew from my daughter's old soccer practices, where butterflies hung out lol! There were purple flowering bushes they liked. This was at the end of Lake Driveway.

John and I got in the car a wonderful September Sunday late afternoon and looked in that area I had recalled. Not a lot of butterflies but a couple. we walked along the lake front path a bit and a man let us know "there are tons of butterflies in the meadows just over there". I really wanted a butterfly in flight shot, if I could manage one. We walked a bit and we saw more and more Monarchs as we reached what we soon spotted, The Meadows in Ajax. Wow! 20 years in that town and I'd never seen this Meadows.

I ended up with the shot that I have below, even before we entered the Meadows section. I just kept aiming and shooting. Not till we got home and looked at a slideshow of my photos, did I see I had gotten this! It actually looked fake! lol! However, the horizon was at an angle so my boyfriend John, taught me how to crop that piece and reposition it in PS, then blend where we repasted the top part. Voila! A straight horizon!