I am losing the game of getting a good swallowtail photo. I am currently 100 to two with the butterflies winning to keep their appearances off camera. A lot of the issue deals with swallowtails who are too busy to sit still for a photo.
However, sometimes there is interference. It is usually due to some four-footed team mates who don't play by the rules. Often a butterfly finally lands only to have a dog or goat stomp through the area and spook the insects.
I scold them out-loud saying,  "Do I interfere in the stuff that you are interested in."
Immediately after I uttered that statement, I realized how wrong I was.

I often interfere in their business. It is because the stuff they are interested in is poop and dead things. These can lead to unplanned doggy baths, vet bills and some sad discoveries.
This was evident this past week when one day Sherman uncovered part of the partial remains of a dead fawn. At first, I was horrified that my interference didn't happen soon enough and that Sherman was a murderer. However, I realized that there was no fresh blood and the remains were old. Sherman was told to "leave it" and walk on. I had hoped that whatever predator killed the fawn would come return to finish its meal.

The pink rhododendron has bloomed and that is always a good lure for swallowtails. I also snapped a shot of a hummingbird clearwing moth visiting some allium blooms and a silver-spotted skipper butterfly.

I was additionally surprised when I found another smaller patch of the orchids nearby.
On a side note a Facebook friend, who happens to be a relative, mentioned that my great-grandmother would sometimes refer to the pink flowers as "bull bags" when she was being witty.

​I hate to say that now I can't seem to get the comparison out of my head when I view the orchids.

I continued to run interference on the goats as I tried to photograph some other flowers. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.

Honeysuckle, ragwort and sweet shrub are showing off their colors.

Meanwhile while trying to photograph frogs at the neighbor's pond, Sadie was running interference. She has been frog hunting.

 Thankfully, she's had no luck. I, however, had a lot of luck getting froggy photos.

Nonetheless without interference, I was able to photograph a solitary sandpiper that stopped by and a painted skipper dragonfly.

Sometimes there is natural interference with bird photography. Hummingbirds are an excellent example of this. As soon as I get a shot in focus, another hummer dive bombs my photo subject. I was able to get a photo of a female hummingbird that was looking to the skies to see where the next attack was coming from.

Surprisingly I managed to get two male hummingbirds sitting adjacent to each other. This usually never happens as one always guards the feeder and chases others away. On a side note, the truce that day did not last long.

Additional natural interference in life include the weather. One example would have been the surprise snow on Mother's Day. It obviously interfered with the hummingbirds trying to feed.

While trying to photograph other birds at a the feeder, a red squirrel caused some interference.

Additionally, a catbird interrupted a shot of a flowering tree.
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Interference can be bad and sometimes good. 

For years, I had identified the flowering tree at the end of our driveway as a flowering cherry. However, this year while looking at other friends' Facebook posts, I decided that it was probably a cultivated flowering crab-apple tree.

I believe my grandmother was the one who called it a flowering cherry tree. In her defense, it flowered and had small fruits that looked like cherries. Its fruits looked nothing like the small green apples that grow on the crab-apples that bloom in the woods.

Meanwhile, my poor tree has a a tough time of it during the past few years. Some years its blooms would stay for week or more. Last year it was devastated by frost and had no blooms at all.

This year I saw numerous buds and then heard a forecast for frost.

I was devastated. I had plans to stalk the blooming tree for bird photos. While the frost didn't seem to do a lot of damage, heavy downpours stripped the pink blooms off the branches. I was still able to get a red squirrel and a grackle posing in its branches with some of the remaining flowers.

Meanwhile in the yard, a not-so-perennial posy popped up. It doesn't appear every year. So little that I often forgot its name. I knew it had something to do with snake. I turned to the internet and was able to identify it as a snake's head flower or chess lily. It is not a native flower and most likely was planted by my grandmother among her spring flowers.

Also in the yard, the bleeding hearts and lilacs have begun to emerge. However, weekly threats of frost have made me nervous. I had been covering plants with buckets and blankets and then storing the covers inside the garage. However, lately I've just let the buckets stay outside as the frost threat doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

My tulips have come and gone. However, Lit' Bit was gracious enough to pose among them when they were in bloom. Although, I probably shouldn't use gracious as the adjective. It was more like trapped. He was inside the garden fence which he hasn't figured out how to get out of yet.

Meanwhile in the woods, the violets and other wildflowers continued to thrive.

Hopefully there are enough blooms to feed some of the emerging butterflies. I was able to get a photo of a painted-lady with its wings shut.

There were also a few small orange butterflies know as pearl crescents flitting about.

The feeders went from just needing to be filled every other day to a daily top off. The oriole feeder jelly dispenser was hard hit. A full jelly dish was out for a full week when the bright birds first arrived back at the beginning of May.
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By the second week, it was full in the morning and empty by my arrival at home after work. Although the orioles weren't entirely to blame as a gray catbird has also been feasting on the sweet substance.

When I first sighted the orioles this year, they were not at the feeder. They were calling in the woods around the house and were spotted in my neighbor's blooming apple tree. However, they have located the jelly feeder and are very vocal when it is empty. My feeders are taken in at night due to bears and other critters. So on the weekends,  when I like to sleep in, I often hear the orioles calling outside and feel guilty that the feeders aren't out yet.

The regulars had been busy cleaning out feeders as well as some of the colder spring weather pushed them to the feeders. The goldfinches had regained their summer colors.

I was able to capture both a white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatch in the same photo.

​I was happy to see the red-breasted nuthatch was sticking around. I think I first got a photo of one 2015 and they would show up sporadically to the feeders. It appears like this one might turn into a regular.

The trail camera also captured a photo of a visit from a great blue heron.

The Canada geese stopped by in early May. However, they don't like the dogs' company so they don't appear that often. I can't blame them, there are day's I sometimes can't stand the dogs' company as well.

Meanwhile,  a male scarlet tanager appeared on a deary early day in May. I spotted them for a day or two, but haven't seen them since. However, one summer we did have a couple who stayed the whole season. Hopefully there will be some more this year as well.

My Facebook memories reminded me with a 2015 photo of a yellow-rumped warbler to be on the look out for these colorful migrants. The BirdCast website provides migration maps to forecast how much movement there may be in the birding world.

However, in my experience these colorful warblers always show up when I am least prepared to get a photo. It has been on rainy days with no good light or just a very brief appearance at the feeder.

​That's just the nature of things 'round here.

While it is sometimes referred to as Plymouth Mayflower, I find trailing arbutus blooms usually appear in April.
The moniker Plymouth Mayflower came from reports that the plant "was said to be the first flower that the pilgrims found when they stepped on the shore of the new world," according to a post on itsnature.org.

Wildflowers of the United States' post about the plant on uswildflowers.com stated there were other names for the plant including ground laurel and mayflower. It even went so far as to break down the Latin name epigaea repens.

"For this favorite wildflower with an exquisite fragrance, one must search among the fallen leaves in early spring. It favors exposed sites where the plants are not smothered by leaf litter," the post continued.
More website surfing revealed that trailing arbutus also gets by with a little help from its little friends.

An article titled "The Plant Sowed by Ants" on naturechirp.com said that "once the flowers are pollinated, seed capsules with a fleshy parts develops. Ants find these grains and carry it to their underground bunker. The fleshy portion of the seeds are fed to their larvae. Then the seeds are discarded in their underground waste pile where the capsules sprout."

A post from www.gardeningknowhow.com also said the shrub "grows from a specific type of fungus that nourishes the roots."

The plant is also the host plant for the hoary elfin butterfly.

According to The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's post trailing arbutus needs all the help it can get.

"It appears to be sensitive to abrupt environmental disturbances, such as lumbering and grazing, which may account for its present scarcity. It is difficult to cultivate," the post said.

A post on the Virginia Native Plant Society's website vnps.org reinforced this point.

"Many authorities, including VNPS founder Mary Painter, caution that trailing-arbutus is almost impossible to cultivate by any means, and native plant gardeners should not attempt to grow it. Attempts to transplant it will almost certainly fail and, in the process, result in the further destruction of the species in the wild," the post warned.

The  Gardening Know How post wrote cautioned folks about trying to grow trailing arbutus.

"...  The plant rarely produces fruit and trailing arbutus wildflowers are nearly impossible to transplant. Due to the plant’s particular growing requirements and destruction of its habitat, mayflower trailing arbutus wildflowers have become very rare. If you are lucky enough to see a mayflower plant growing in the wild, do not attempt to remove it. The species is protected by law in many states, and removal is prohibited. Once trailing arbutus disappears from an area, it will probably never return," the post continued.

My current research didn't turn up whether the shrub is protected in Pennsylvania.

The Wildflowers of the United States post stated, "it is endangered in Florida, where it is found in the panhandle. It is also protected in New York, and may be extirpated in Illinois. It is the state flower of Massachusetts, and is legally protected there as well. "

Meanwhile the 2004 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the plant is "considered common and secure through most of its range."

However it went on to state "trailing arbutus is subject to collection (its evergreen leaves are used for wreaths) and may be slow to recover following disturbance."

I did manage to find a post on one site itsnature.org that mentioned the plant was protected in this state.

"In Pennsylvania and Massachusetts the law protects the rarely seen flowers, while it is the provincial flower of Nova Scotia," the site claimed.

The trailing arbutus seems to have diminished somewhat in my stomping grounds. However, it wasn't from any wreath making. Although, I must admit that a wreath made out of the leaves and flowers would be absolutely gorgeous.

There used to be large patches of the shrub intermingled with tea-berry plants on a bank behind my parents' field. There used to be several large swathes of it in the neighbor's field as well.
The ground was literally covered with them.

I remembered my grandmother having a tiny vase just filled with the white and pink flowers. Even though they were small the collective fragrance filled the room.

However, the huge patches have dwindled over the years.

I don't think it was due to any over-picking on my grandmother's part.

I believed it to be just the progression of the forest. The once sandy and acidic soil that was favored by the plant has been covered by decomposing tree leaves over the years.

Other plants were able to gain a foothold in places they didn't venture because of that environment. Slowly more trees grew. That meant more leaves and hence better soil for other plants.