The Many Critters of Horkavy Place

I spent a LOT of time researching plants that pollinators love in the hopes that our yard would be full of butterflies, birds, hummingbirds and bees. I'm happy to say that research paid off! :) We've seen all kinds of bees, including green, metallic bees (those are my favorite to watch!), birds, dragonflies, damselflies, teeny, tiny blue flies, butterflies, moths and birds.

Here are just some of the creatures we have seen come through the yard:

Yellow Eastern Swallowtail butterfly coming to lay her eggs in October.

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly, October.

One of our 5 hummingbirds, October

Male Painted Bunting (so exciting when they come visit us in the Spring and Fall!)

A family of Painted Buntings (you can see the other two in the background).
This one is either the female or a juvenile (they look the same). 

An oriole. It's so hard to capture these guys. They don't stay in view for very long.
We have seen them in October and April.

A Monarch on the Coral Plant.

We had a couple of Gulf Fritillaries drop by in July

Here's another shot of the Gulf Fritillary

This Black Witch Moth came to visit us in August.

I was told this is a female Great Southern White.

Our resident cardinal

Female cardinal. She always accompanies the male. They're so sweet together!

Of course, we had screech owls :) They were here in May.

I believe this is a Gray Catbird. He visited in April.

Who would've thought this rusty pan would be such a hit with the smaller birds?
Not us, but we did buy a shallow bird bath recently. We'll see if they like that as much.

Pluto Sphinx Moth we found in our parsley one day.
He sat there all day and once it got dark, he started vibrating and then flew off.

I believe this is an Orange-Barred Sulphur on our Candlestick Plant.
We later found lots and lots of its caterpillars! :)

We have lots and lots of different kinds of dragonflies, so I won't post them all here,
but the colors on each one are so unique and beautiful. I even had one land on my finger one day! :)

Look at the colors on this little guy! Nature is amazing.

Then there's this little guy.

This Red-waisted Florella Moths is SO tiny and hard to catch a shot of!

Julia Butterfly

Zebra Butterfly

This is a newborn Black Swallowtail. We had it in the butterfly box in the house (we put caterpillars in there
so they can change without the dangers of the garden) and then brought it outside once he was ready.

This guy is so tiny. He's about the size of a penny, if not smaller. I think he's a Nickerbean Blue.

Ruddy Daggerwing taking a nap in the shade.