This beauty caught my eye as I entered the Backyard Garden. Its bright orange plumage really stood out against the green vegetation. You can tell this is a species of the tropics with that colouring. Like all neotropical migrants, it comes north to breed, spending a few months here before flying back to Mexico/ Central America.

The small carpenter bee is shown in close up in the previous photo. the sweat bee is probably Halictus rubicundus.

The red trilliums always bloom before the white trilliums and there are both species in the old woods area, so a good chance to compare them. This species is sometimes known as Wake-robin.

There were scores of these tiny native beetles today, all over the dandelions. The one on the left is a slightly different colour.

Photo courtesy of Francine. As Sandy explains: "While working at the garden yesterday afternoon, I had to go back to the centre to fetch water. When I got to the bridge a woman was there photographing a lovely big snapping turtle that was climbing the rocks below the bridge. Stood and watched for a while, then on to get the water. By the time I got back to the bridge, the turtle had succeeded in reaching the pond (the woman was still there, along with a couple of other people who had stopped to watch). It was quite remarkable to see a turtle rock-climbing. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but then I remembered a conversation on Facebook a couple of years ago where someone had mentioned a snapper that climbed a chain-link fence!"