According to the plans for the new presidential library, Perennial Garden in Jackson Park (Hyde Park, Chicago) would be demolished to make way for a reflecting pool. I’m sad about this because Perennial Garden is home to butterflies, Hemaris moths, bees, grasshoppers, and even a hummingbird or two, which is what parks should be. Photos from a quick stop yesterday.
Autumn Sunday morning promenade around Promontory Point.
I updated the Relics: Mail chute post with slightly better photos and a new photo taken at the Garland Building in Chicago. I forgot to take a photo of the lobby box, but will. Someday. I wonder what is under the white paint, although I suspect hallway mail slots weren’t as fancy as the lobby boxes.
While this snowberry clearwing was intent on seeking nectar, I was intent on photographing it. I couldn’t get crisp photos with an iPhone, but this is one of my favorites. It looks like it’s playing hide-and-seek with me, but I have no idea of how this little hovering moth perceives the world. Maybe I was just an annoying anomaly of movement, shadow, or strange colors. To me, they are like garden fairies. I haven’t seen one in a couple of weeks, and I miss them. So long to summer, and hope to see your progeny next year.
Lately I’ve been lurking at Perennial Garden in Hyde Park, a favorite spot of mine. Right off where the pavement turns in I found a bush where butterflies hang out. I’ve learned it’s called “butterfly bush.” It’s an invasive species, so I don’t recommend it for your garden. (Try something native, like butterfly weed.)
Some days the bush is visited by butterflies. At other times I see more little moths. One day to my surprise a hummingbird whizzed in and out. I’m not sure it even stopped. It (or another) did the same thing the next day, never when I was ready for a photo.
After the hummingbird sightings, I started thinking that my life would be complete if a hawk, or hummingbird, moth showed up. I’d seen only one once before, near the Cascades in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a fancy, not even a hope. The next day my jaw dropped when one of these little garden fairies buzzed in. Now I wish I hadn’t waited until August to start my lurking.
My life is complete. Until I figure out how to get better photos or get my camera over there. By then it will be September.
Playing with a new wide-angle lens that has better peripheral vision than I do.
I dread the spring and summer tempests that ravage the Midwest, but I love the clouds of the seasons after the uniform gray of winter.
Gallery
This was an Approver’s Choice at Weather Underground.
