European Skipper on Red Clover

Note: this is my main photo today, so hopefully Flickr or something else won't change the order seen by some people. Posting late, this morning.

Today, 6 August 2015, the skies are heavily overcast with no sign of the sun. So far, it's not raining, which is good, seeing as we have had such crazy weather the last two days - Severe Thunderstorms which produced masses of accumulated hail and really bad flooding in parts of the city. My own area only had the lightning, very strong winds and torrential rain, but my daughter now has a "lake" outside her place and she said that the hail in some doorways was piled almost a foot deep! Last night, I saw someone's video taken when they were riding on a bus somewhere in the city - the water was so deep that it was swirling inside the bus, around their ankles! If ONLY all this rain could have fallen in California instead, to help them with their devastating forest fires! No tornado passing over the city this time, unlike recently. Temperature just after lunch is only 12C.

This photo of a tiny Skipper butterfly on a Red Clover flower was taken on 23 July 2015, at Darryl Teskey's property. It could just as easily have been taken on 3 August at the Timber Ridge Conservation Site, where we saw lots of these Skippers. These unusual butterflies have such large eyes : )

On 23 July 2015, five of us spent the day botanizing the land belonging to Darryl Teskey, SW of Calgary and W of Millarville (maybe a 40-minute drive from Calgary). This was the first time I had been there and I'm so glad I was invited to go - I would have missed all sorts of things, including a family of Ruffed Grouse and several fungi. These Grouse were the rare rufous-morph, and we startled them when we were walking through the forest in their direction. Usually, you don't see Grouse because they are so well-hidden. When you get fairly close (sometimes very close) to them, they suddenly "explode" from the tangle of shrubs and plants of the forest floor, making ones heart beat fast!

Our walk took us over grassland and through forest, many places treacherous with so many fallen logs which were often barely visible. I have never, ever seen so many tiny Skipper butterflies - there must have been hundreds or even thousands of these bright orange beauties that were flying or perched on flowers of every colour.

Fortunately, the rain stayed away until we started driving back to Calgary. Quite a lot of black clouds, reminding me of the tornado that passed through Calgary just the day before (22 July 2015).

Our purpose, as always on a bio-blitz, was to find and list everything that we saw - wildflowers, trees, grasses, birds, insects, fungi, etc.. Our leader then compiles an extensive list of our finds and this is later sent to the landowner, along with any photos that we might take. Always a win/win situation, as the landowner then has a much better idea of just what is on his property, and we have a most enjoyable day. This summer, with quite a few botanizing outings like this, plus two 3-day trips to Waterton Lakes National Park, I am so far behind with the photos that I need to edit and e-mail!