Once again, and for all good... and no good... reasons, I'm so far behind that I thought I'd just post this happy shot, taken this morning at the Miner Preserve in Stonington, and hope maybe I can both keep current and backfill from what is really a large trove of shots. I'm leading a public walk at Miner on the 15th, and I needed a preliminary walk to see what was currently going on in terms of Bobolinks, butterflies, birds, milkweeds, and other birds. It turns out that the answer is plenty, and in a couple of hours, I found enough to fill a week's worth of posts. For now, however, the main finding was that, while the milkweeds have yet to bloom—they're still in the tight-bud stage—the first of the Monarch Butterflies are back, checking out the foliage for likely egg-deposit sites. I spotted about half a dozen of the butterflies, including two flying in tandem. Alas, while the duo was slow, they still didn't want to stop moving. All I got of the pair was a memory. This one, resting on a goldenrod, was more cooperative.