Bay Photos by Donna

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The Bayview Trail at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge passes through their Butterfly Garden, a certified Bayscapes garden created using native plants to create a wildflower garden, a living fence, and a water garden.  (For those interested, a list of plants used is at the end of this post.)

Here are my best of those butterflies passing through a couple weeks ago that gave me nice photo ops.

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Pearl Crescent

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Pearl Crescent

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Eastern Tailed-Blue

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Common Checkered Skipper

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Common Checkered Skipper

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Monarch

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Monarch

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Monarch

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American Lady

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American Lady

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I also encountered a dragonfly flirting with me.

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Blue Dasher

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And, of course, a bird!  They were shooting up on flower heads for seeds and then dropping again out of sight.  I was able to get just one goldfinch.

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American Goldfinch

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Hundreds of butterflies can be seen in this garden during the peak of summer.  I’ll be eager to see and share them with you next year!

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Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge Bayscapes Garden – Plant List

Inkberry (Ilex glabra)
Coast Azalea (Rhododendron atlanticum)
Early Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium vacillans)
Butterflyweed (Asclepias tublerosa)
Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis)
New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae)
Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium fistulosum)
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea)
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)
Gayfeather (Liatris spicata)
Pink Coreopsis (Coreopsis rosea)
Blue Flag (Iris versicolor)
Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)
N.Y. Ironweed (Vermonia noveboracensis)
Black-eye Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
Beebalm (Monarda didyma)
Eastern Columbine (Aquilegia canadensia)
Mist Flower (Eupatorium colestinum)
Virgins Bower (Clematis virginiana)
Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans)
Swamp Sunflower (Helianthus angustifolis)
Wrinkle-leaf Goldenrod (Solidago rugosa)
Sweet Fern (Comptonia peregrina)
Tickseed (Coreopsis verticillata)
Lizard’s Tail (Saururus cernuus)

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