I took a walk today through a favorite trail and was happy to see four or five monarch butterflies and a few eastern tiger swallowtails and red spotted purples. I only saw one common buckeye and what was probably some kind of sulphur. Last week I was at a cut-your-own flowers garden and was kind of anxious that I saw only one butterfly.

All the milkweed pods were swelled up and getting ready to release their seeds. I saw two milkweed bugs. Near the end of the trail I came to a non-native Tree of Heaven, with plentiful non-native Spotted Lanternflies.

I didn't see any Blue Gray Gnatcatchers, and they are really falling down on the job. At one point I considered spraying repellent directly on my eyeballs.

The true highlight of my hike was hearing a Yellow Billed Cuckoo up in the same tree I'd seen one a couple of years ago. My neck got sore waiting for it to appear, and the mosquitoes finally drove me off, but I know what I heard.

#birds #birdWatching #SpottedLanternfly #Invasive
#YellowBilledCuckoo #insect #butterfly #monarch

How stressed should I be about the thousands of spotted lantern flies in my yard (Massachusetts)?

We have an overgrowth of Tree of Heaven and some other aggressive vines they laid all the eggs on/usually hang out on.

There must be thousands of them. It's overwhelming.

#invasivespecies #TreeOfHeaven #SpottedLanternFly

A spotted lanternfly thread

They are black and white at this stage, kinda cute even

#spottedlanternfly