A Visit to Montezuma Wildlife Refuge

I had arranged to sell my last two remaining Singer 301 sewing machines to a friend in the Syracuse area.  As she ended up in the hospital, her husband and I arranged a mid-point meeting place which was right near the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge which I had wanted to visit this summer.  This was the perfect excuse and a nice day besides!  This is the perfect setting for a Goldfinch, in among the Scotch Thistle.

I did see some Caspian Terns like last year but not as many.  There were some Gadwalls, Mallards, Canada Geese, Laughing Gulls, Great Blues and one lone Great Egret and I believe a Blue Winged Teal female.  Unfortunately, everything was too far away for good pictures.  There were some great Goldfinches but just as I was about to take pictures, a huge tractor with a mower came by and cut down all the thistle!!  

I did see a few of the Black Swallowtails and several other butterflies that were moving just too fast.  This one had its wings flapping constantly so I increased the speed to 1/1200 of a second to get the picture!
I liked it sitting on the Scotch Thistle as this was my favorite flower as a child!

I also spotted this Red Admiral off in the distance.

This was the coolest find.  I saw a lot of dragonflies but none of them were landing so impossible to photograph. This is a Halloween Pennant Dragonfly which looked like a butterfly from a distance.  I took this from my car window quite a distance away.  I know I haven't seen one of these before.

There were a lot of these beautiful Marsh Mallows all in pink.  They look an awful like our perennial hibiscus.

Of course lots of Queen Anne's Lace which was my least favorite flower as a child although I can't imagine why!

There is very little water now in this normally marshy Refuge. They drained it a couple of years ago to clean it up and have yet to fill it back up again. I am sure there will be more birds when that happens.

This is one of the few ponded areas  which lies outside of the long nature loop.   It is pretty though and has a high observation deck.