Fall Meadow at Lake Springfield Boathouse (2)
/Now to share some photos of the insects we saw in the meadow near the Lake Springfield (Missouri) Boathouse last week…
There were bees visiting flowers that were still blooming.
There were several pipevine swallowtails (iridescent blue on hindwing) being very active on the few thistles still blooming. These butterflies seemed to be strong fliers in the breeze; they managed to hang on as the thistle moved about too.
Several Monarch butterflies fluttered over the meadow. Finally - one landed on some asters. This Monarch (female) looked like one of the slightly larger ones that is headed to Mexico for the winter.
On the milkweed pods, groups of milkweed bugs at various stages of development were everywhere! The adult bugs migrate south to survive the winter and migrate back to Missouri in the spring and summer. I wonder how many of the immature bugs will mature in time to make the migration south!
There were lots of medium sized grasshoppers. I didn’t see any larger ones. They were very active…and I wasn’t fast enough to capture any portraits. A couple I talked to mentioned they had seen very large garden type spiders in the meadow feeding on grasshoppers but the spiders didn’t seem to be around on this fall morning.
