John decided to walk the loop around our (Maple) campground on the Otter Stream trail early in the morning. If you consider 10 am early, then he succeeded. Otherwise, he was a bit late. The hope was that it would be cooler, less people around, and more animals out. Well, at least it was cooler!

For most of the hike, bugs were the only thing around. The first subjects were a group of Honey Bees on a red and gold flower. It looks like it might be a Firecracker Sunflower, but it is the only one we have seen in the field.

Across from the Firecracker Sunflower was a large feather. It looked like it might be from a large raptor. Nope. Wild Turkey feather. It has a lot of similarities with a raptor feather, but the stripes are much smaller than a raptor feather. For reasons unknown, a Green Bottle Fly was enamored with the feather.

The pollinator patches have an abundance of medium sized yellow-green butterflies. Today, they stopped long enough for pictures. They appear to be Clouded Sulfur Butterflies. There were at least four of them flitting around the hiking path on the way out.

The path has some of the largest dandelions we have ever seen. They are about three feet tall and branch out into multiple flowers. It might be Curlycup Gumweed. (This is different from the baseball sized dandelion fluff balls we saw a 7th Ranch Campground. Those were probably Yellow Salsify.)

And the wild plums are starting to ripen.

And there are still dragonflies across from where we are camping. This appears to be a skimmer, but it is not clear which one. It might be a female Common White-tailed Skimmer or possibly a Long-tailed Skimmer.

At the shortcut path, John finally saw a few Monarch Butterflies. There were two of them on the same flower. They stayed still long enough to get a fair number of pictures. Sadly, some bikers came along and scared them away.

And they flew away together. Stuck together. John did some Googling to make sure there are no Siamese Twin Monarch Butterflies. Nope. That was awkward. It is not even the proper season, but that was butterflies having sex. Just remember, you are no better because you looked at the pictures!

After turning onto the last leg of the trail, a bird finally showed up. This was the place that all the Goldfinches hang out, and it did not fail to produce a Goldfinch today.

A few steps further produced a Chipping Sparrow. We saw these sparrows in Yellowstone, but we either did not get a picture or it is in the pile of 2,500 pictures being sorted. These little birds are abundant.

At the exit of the loop, a female Goldfinch flew by and starting eating from the Common Sunflowers.

You can see how strong the wind is from this video. It is a good thing that Goldfinches do not get whiplash or seasick.

As John was taking pictures of the female Goldfinch, something screeched and scared it away. Looking up revealed two Sharp-shinned Hawks flying into the clearing from the trees to the south.