Many of the wildflowers at the field near the Lake Springfield Boathouse were going to seed…but there were will a few blooms to find and photograph.

My favorites were the lotuses in the shallow water near where the rose mallows were blooming.

There was a honey locust in the trees across the path from the field – the curly seed pods still green.

Of course the bees and skippers were around…

Dragonflies

Turtles on a log off an island in the lake

A Mississippi Kite in a tree eating (there were 4 kites in all…they entertained us with their swoops in the air over the field – finding prey)

The flowers would have been more numerous a few weeks ago – but the outing was more comfortable on a day without a heat advisory/warning!

Earlier this month, my husband and I headed over to the Lake Springfield boathouse for some photography of the meadow.

Before we walked to the meadow, we looked around the boathouse itself. The American lotus is blooming in the shallow water near the boathouse,

The plantings of native flowers in the beds around the structure, and

A non-native, invasive rose is growing at the edge of the forest.

The Purple Martin houses are still full and there appeared to be a young one in the grass…still being fed by the adults but also beginning to fly about as well.

Summer flowers are beginning to bloom profusely in the meadow.

There are lots of insects in the meadow too; they present a little more challenge to photograph. This month I photographed bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. The dragonflies and butterflies were intentional; I waited until they were posed. Milkweed in bloom is impossible to photograph without bees; I am including the picture that had two well positioned bees – selected from many images where they weren’t. I couldn’t resist the bumble bee butt image…a zoomed picture of a flower that a bee just happened to be flying over!