The late evening sun bathes a Bumblebee in rim light as it buzzes to its next destination among the flowers.

The monarch activity has begun to wane as September winds down, and really enjoyed their visits over the last several weeks. Sometimes several monarchs were active at once, along with the birds, bees, moths and other creatures . . .

Finally had a visit last week from one of my favorite little flying machines, a Hummingbird Clearwing sphinx moth. These 1 1/2 inch long pollinators can beat their wings up to 70 beats per second versus a Hummingbird of around 50 beats per second . . .

A female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail captured in flight while flitting among the flowers.

Back in September the bumblebees had become quite active around the flowers, and I was watching this one in particular as it collected some pollen from this finch-plucked flower, and then it crawled out onto these two petals and it stopped moving . . . for about 8 to 10 minutes. Then it started its wing machine . . .

Check out this bumblebee from last August as it was flying in for a sunflower. The pollen is sticking to the bumblebee everywhere, perhaps at capacity since you can see some of it falling off behind it. Fascinating little creatures they are.