State Street Bridge in Hamburg is closed for about two years to be demolished and rebuilt forcing cross river traffic to detour via I-78 or PA 61.

 

Bullfrog - Rana catesbeiana - another denizen of the BMWI garden.

 

Pipevine Swallowtail - Battus philenor - at the BMWI garden; the last time I saw one was over two years ago at Fairlane Village Mall in Schuylkill County.

 

Kayaks passing some ruins of the old Schuylkill Canal above Kernsville Dam. Just before I shot this couple who appeared to be near my own age, I saw four younger and more adventurous souls take off from the pool below the dam to head downriver in kayaks. Water levels are barely adequate for such recreation in parts of the river.

 

Ruby Meadowhawk - Sympetrum rubicundulum - mated pair - found at the butterfly garden. I shot dozens of photos of this pair over the course of about three minutes, but Manual focusing on a constantly moving target yielded only a few acceptable images.

 

Orange Sulphur - Colias eurytheme - male (above) and white (summer) form female - found at the Blue Mountain Wildlife Inc. butterfly garden at the Kernsville Dam. The so-called white form females that appear in summer range from truly white where they would normally be yellow to ones like this which still have a significant amount of pigmentation.

  Garter Snake - Tamnophis sirtalis ? - which I nearly stepped on in the butterfly garden this week. Whether this is the Common or Eastern type I leave to those who can catch one. I only managed about four frames before this one got lost in the shrubbery and the other photos which showed the head were not in focus. This is only the third live snake I have ever encountered with camera in hand.

  Silver-spotted Skipper - Epargyreus clarus - caught in the web of an orb weaver spider. I saw an Orange Suphur caught in an orb weaver web in the same field a few days earlier. As we slide into autumn, opportunities for hunting lepidoptera decline.

  Auctions can be a lot of fun. I went to one this summer with the intention of buying some industrial pallet racking. But, in the course of a long hot afternoon, O also bought a chair to sit in while I was waiting for something interesting to come under the hammer. And, late in the day, I bought a lot that included a couple of boxes containing who knew what along with some gardening tools. When I finally got round to looking through those boxes, I found this very nice candle lamp which stands over a foot tall. It was made thigh here in Berks County by the Baldwin Brass Company. I'm planning to put it up on Ebay along with some other glass and brass items from that box lot and maybe make enough to pay for the shovels and rakes.

  Eyeglasses - another of the strange things I've seen while photographing wildxlife was this pair of glasses which I noticed sitting on the railing of the US-22 bridge in Lenhartsville.

  Cedar Waxwing - Bombycilla cedorum - after being quite excited to have seen isolated individuals at two sites three miles west of home, I find a whole flock of them just the other side of the Interstate in a tree I can see from the yard. This isn't as clear as I'd like, but they stay pretty high in the tree, so my choices are shoot straight up or, like here, shoot from the rim of the little valley where their tree is located.

 

Black Swallowtail - Papilio polyxenes - female - on red clover.

  Eastern Tailed-Blue - Everes comyntas - male - note that the tails are are mere stumps on this specimen which shows other signs of wear as well.

  Common Checkered-Skipper - Pyrgus communis - a nice fresh specimen.

  Clouded Sulphurs - Colias philodice - male and white (summer) form female - it is very tricky to separate white form females of Orange and Clouded Sulphurs, but this pair spent a lot of time in courtship dance so I'm guessing the female is Clouded as the male clearly is.

 

Meadow Fritillary - Boloria bellona - This appears to be a recently emerged specimen still in paerfect condition.

  Monument - at 7th & Hamilton in Allentown - to the War to Destroy the Constitiution; much more impressive than the one on Tilghman to the War for World Empire.

 

Least Skipper - Ancyloxypha numitor - and Orange Sulphur - Colias eurytheme - Ive shown lots of Sulphurs here, but this may be the first Least Skipper. What makes this photo interesting to me is getting two different species in focus on different flowers in one frame.

  Cabbage White - Pieris rapae - if not out most common, one of our most obvious, butterflies; but I thought this was a particularly nice composition.

 

My CX330 finally got some work to do, even if it was just on the farm - grubbing out some trees and loading them into a dump truck with the use of its thumb.

 

American Goldfinch - Carduelis tristis - female - in the butterfly garden.

  Red-Spotted Purple - Limenitis a. astyanax - This is the only time I have seen one of these on a flower; normally they feed in woods on rotten fruit and other less pleasant fare, but they are frequently found sunning themselves on rural roads.

 

House Finches - Carpodacus mexicanus - pair - one of two pairs I managed to photograph together that week.

  Bicyclists passing the Blue Mountain Wildlife, Inc. butterfly garden at the Kernsville Dam.

  Breaking my rule - but this photo of an immature hawk was too good to leave out even though I haven't figured out exactly which species to which it belongs.