More Yosemite Natural History

We miss being in California, but enjoy being home again. There is so much we have here in North Carolina that California does not have. An example dragonflies I have more right here in our pond than all of what we saw in California, the ponds were fenced, rivers to swift or damed and the lakes were not very odonate freindly. Guess I enjoy sweating also.

California Sister (Adelpha bredowii) One of my favorite butterflies from this trip. I only saw them on this California Buckeye, Aesculus californica which seemed to be blooming everywhere!

Pale Swallowtail, Papilio eurymedon on Purple Milkweed Asclepias cordifolia

Jeffrey Shooting Star, Dodecatheon jeffreyi we saw lots of these in wet meadows inside Yosemite National Park. This is the larger of the shooting stars.

Narrow-leaf Milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis we found this in very dry canyons and hairstreak butterflies were found on it several places along with Monarchs flying about in the areas at each milkweed grouping.

Female Acmon Blue, Plebejus acmon laying eggs on this plant in a dry canyon.

Grappletail, Octogomphus specularis we found our first two of these on an old back road that had a tiny mostly dry creek, surprised to see any odes with so little water. There was an yellow marked one but it did not like me. These can be marked gray, gray or yellow, pretty cool huh? Then later in the day we stumbled into Anderson Creek and found maybe a dozen of these in the campground creek there. I loved that creek except for brushing into stinging nettles there.