On the Patio

Yesterday was the Autumnal Equinox, so it seemed a good time to highlight some of the seasonal changes on the patio. We got another rain earlier in the month, perhaps a sign that Autumn is coming:

We haven't seen as many butterflies this year as we usually do, but there've been some swallowtails and some pretty yellow ones, a number of little white butterflies, and I got this picture of an orange butterly (a Gulf Fritillary?):

and some photos of an entirely different kind of orange butterfly, (perhaps a Monarch?):

The swallowtails still come to the flowers, but are looking quite ragged this late in the year.

We've had a hard time attracting cardinals, but we finally found a feeder that does the trick:

The problem is that the feeder the cardinals like is readily accessible to the squirrels and chipmunks *sigh* They should just call them chipmunk feeders and be done with it:

This female cardinal ventured down for water:

The hummingbirds pulled a stunt I'd never seen, with one hanging upside down from a Dracena leaf while the other poked and prodded until they both flew away.

I find hummingbirds hard to photograph, but I got a couple of videos. In this one you can see and hear the hummingbird up in the dogwood tree:

and in the one below you see the hummingbird at the feeder:

We still have some coneflowers blooming:

and some caterpillars on the rue:

The opossum has been a new visitor we get a kick out of watching. She (he?) has only come twice, several days apart around 11:00 PM, and hunts bugs with enthusiasm:

She patrols the perimeter, looks in the door at us, and gets a drink. We're in favor of anything that keeps bugs at bay and doesn't want to come inside.

Yesterday was a gray, drizzly day with a high in the low 70s -perfect weather for the equinox observance!