Category: Field Notes and Sightings
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Echinacea & Bergamot: Early Summer Pollinator Blooms
The Trailhead Lace up your hiking boots and step off the paved path! Welcome back to Follow the Bloom Trail, a series where we use nature’s seasonal calendar to find and identify Kentucky’s amazing bees and butterflies. Three times a season we head into the wildscapes of our local nature preserves and natural areas. Today,…
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Monarch vs Viceroy Butterfly Comparison Guide
A Monarch finds nectar in Milkweed tubular mid-summer blooms. It mimics a Viceroy, except the wing perimeter has a double row of white dots.
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Spring Bees and Butterflies: Seasonal Guide
Spring Pollinators: First Flights, a condensed description of spring emergence, describes the arrival of the first pollinators to emerge in spring, and the native plants they depend on.
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Furrow Bees: The Underground Socialites
Tiny Furrow Bee discovers nectar inside a blooming fleabane flower during mid-spring season
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Meadow Fritillary: Gliding through the Grass
Meadow Fritillary spotting places to lay eggs amongst the shot grasses found in early-spring.
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Eastern Carpenter Bee: The Loud Carpenter of Spring
Carpenter Bee caught in flight approaching a tall purple lavender plant in early spring.
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Spring Beauty Mining Bee: The Tiny Spring Specialist
A Mining Bee, dived deep into a Spring Beauty flower and discovered both nectar and shelter. The flower is one of the first spotted in early-spring.
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Blue Violet: An Essential Early Bloomer
A Blue violet, nestled amongst the short grasses of early-spring, is in full bloom and waiting to be pollinated.
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Mourning Cloak: First Butterfly of Spring
A Mourning Cloak butterfly finds water to drink inside damp rock crevices. Discovering water is an essential task after emerging in early spring.