Early.

Yes , its started early this year. No sooner were the guys off of the garage roof where they were replacing log siding before  winter arrives ohhhh,  than winter arrived. Literally 5 minutes after they packed up down came the first snow. 
It didnt last long and then turned to rain within the hour but it was snow  nonetheless.

The Tomato Thief

We have lots of grey squirrels in our woods here and even more Chipmunks. But we only have the two red squirrels that I see regularly. And today was the first time I managed to get a photo and that only with my phone as I went to check the veggies. Where this miscreant was making off with a tomato.

Moth With A Mohawk

A Large Tolype (Tolype velleda) found on the porch this morning. Quite the spectacular coiffure.

Never Catching Up

These three are Autumn Meadowhawks female and male.

The Black-shouldered Spinyleg.

Canadian Darner male.

Fields of sunflowers stretching acre after acre in Arooostock county.

A Pennsylvania Leatherwing.

The White Admiral 

Common Ringlet.

Clouded Sulphur

And , of course, Puffins off the coast near Milbridge 

How Do The Angels Get To Sleep When The Devil Leaves The Porchlight On?

I know, it's been quiet at Mainly Banished of late. But I've been busy recently keeping  the house up. It's been warm, as seems to have been the case everywhere this summer, unseasonably so. Around 90f is hotter than hell for Maine, especially consistantly, day in day out for a couple of weeks.

I have a bunch of stuff to post from the last few weeks but I thought I'd start with the products of the many warm nights that punctuate the succession of warm days. These have produced a whole long list of moths around the porchlights, either every evening or the leftovers every morning. 

 Of the bigger specimens this is the Waved Sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa)

 Slightly smaller but very striking I think is this Lettered Habrosyne ( Habrosyne scripta) with it's odd 'blank' area at the base of the forewing.

 This looked like another Sphinx to me initially but turned out to be a Black Rimmed Prominent (Pheosia rimosa).

 Much smaller and not totally identified yet is this member of the Haploa genus. They all have striking chocolate and cream patterning like this but within each species there is a lot of pattern variation and that makes ID difficult. A week after posting BugGuide still haven't got a concrete identification.

Smaller again but very pretty is the White-Ribboned Carpet (Mesoleuca ruficillata)

 Another Sphinx species was found resting on the basil on the deck after a long warm evening. This seems to be the Twin-Spotted Sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis)

Finally for now here is the day-flying Hummingbird Clearing ( Hemaris thysbe). This particular specimen was very active on the beebalm for a good hour yesterday afternoon
As for the title of today's post, then see below. 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=htGOO2b12Es

Local Colour

All of these were snapped in the garden over the last week or so. Above is a young female Dot Tailed Whiteface, the male of which was photographed at the Botanical Gardens earlier this month.

And this, here in Maine, is the 

Virginia Ctenucha moth. Never did see one in Virginia that being the very southern edge of it's range.

And then I'm working on an ID for the skipper. Oddly enough I suspect it's a European Skipper .

Below is a young male 12 Spotted Skimmer. The blue spots on the wings are just starting to colour if you look carefully.

New Faces

Out to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens this weekend. It's a couple of hours south of us and in what will be a very very busy tourist area come high summer. So off we went while the weather is getting warm and sunny without the hordes. We were there for our first time back in April and the snow had only just finally cleared. And there wasn't a whole lot to be seen. But now the gardens were looking wonderful . Particularly nice was the shade and woodland planting. And the ferns especially looked stunning.

Look at that gorgeous contrast.

Also in the woodland were both Lady Slipper orchids

Yellow 

And pink

Also found were two new to me dragonflies around the pond in the children's garden.

Above, with the white face and the dot on the tail is... A Dot-tailed Whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta)

And here is the Chalk-fronted Corporal (Ladona Julia). Both new to me and both northern species.

Our Botanical Garden visit was Saturday but on Friday it was the Maine State Aquarium. It's a VERY SMALL aquarium for the state with such a major fishery. But there was a small fishing pier that gave great spots for photographing King Eider ducks.

At least before the fog rolled in for an hour or so.

On our return home I finally managed to catch up with one of the many many Tiger Swallowtail butterflies that are flying  everywhere here. The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was the state butterfly back in Virginia but we never had near the numbers we have up here. There are often 4 or 5 in the yard at once.

It turns out that these aren't the Eastern Tiger but the Canadian Tiger (Papilio canadensis). It's a little bit smaller and has a very small pattern difference in hind wing. It also loves Aspens and Birches as a caterpillar food plant which makes it perfect for our woodlands.

(A Different) Kinda Blue

We have planted 3 raised beds in our new yard in Maine. The soil here is free draining and sandy, thanks mostly to Maine's glacial geology. But it's also full of rocks both large and small. This makes the digging of even bulb planting holes a major chore. So raised beds and new soil seemed to be the easiest way to make a quick start. I've beds 7x4, 14x4 and for our latest, the 8x8  butterfly garden. The soil arrived 3 weeks ago and we have been planting madly ever since. We got an initial 6 cubic yards that filled all three of those beds and left a little over for potting and planters. $28 per cubic yard and $40 delivery. I have another 2 cubic yards coming Saturday to fill my veggie bed. 

That'll be it for a while until we do the shade bed at the edge of the woods, but I need to figure how to edge that one as it'll be irregular.

So here are the 3 largely finished beds, planted 90% with perennials. Or hopefully perennials. My UK readers know that buddliea is tough as old boots, pretty much a weed. It's found on every piece of waste ground in Britain even growing out of walls if it can get a foothold. Here in Maine it usually won't survive more than a couple of winters. Still, two are 

 planted now and it was one of these that produced the first butterfly picture from the butterfly garden today. 

And it's a new one to me too.

This is the Silvery Blue. Found right across the northern USA. I didn't see it in Virginia because there is only an isolated Appalachian population there and I wasn't usually in the mountains in spring.

I know it doesn't look very blue here but in flight, when you can see the upper surfaces, it's very striking. Not that the underwings aren't very attractive too. And like all blues it's very small; about the size of my thumb nail.

An Old Box and It's Contents (and Discontents)

I found this old handmade box today while tidying. The bottom is decorated with hand cut rubber stamps and the lid with a geometric design featuring William S. Burroughs looking uncannily like Edith Sitwell.

Inside were -

A couple of badges that I think likely came through Counter Productions small press distributors.

An enamel pin promoting Los Bros Hernandez Mr.X comic bought at a Comic Con some time in the 1980s.

A very small enamel pin of a classic anarchist bomb from a book shop near Manchester bus station 

And, incongruously, a pair of (Sir) Paul Smith cufflinks .