Late afternoon the day before yesterday, I was walking around my garden when what should I see, but a large orange butterfly. I immediately thought it might be a Monarch as it seemed too large to be a Painted Lady. It must have flitted around and through the garden for a good 10 – 15 minutes before it finally rested with its wings open in a spot where I could get a photograph.
Male Monarch Butterfly
It was clearly a male Monarch butterfly.
I was amazed to find him again, yesterday — 24 hrs. later, still in the garden. I keep fantasizing that he’s feeling that he has found a spot where the world is as it ought to be. There still seem to be plenty of nectar flowers available — boneset, goldenrod and a butterfly bush. Plus there’s plenty of milkweed should a female arrive to lay eggs. (I wish this male could somehow get a female to join him.)
I reported this sighting to Journey North (http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sightings/query_result.html?record_id=1407963782).
FROM WEEDS TO BEES 
Oh, that is so exciting! Happy, happy, happy!
Robin, I am so glad the monarch found your garden and that you saw him! I haven’t seen a monarch yet this summer, but I keep looking. Deb
Robin, that is wonderful. I would be thrilled to pieces to actually see a monarch in my yard. Cathryn has them in her neighborhood 4 miles away; I fear that the presence of more nursery-purchased, neonicotinoid-poisoned plants in my neighborhood may be doing them in. We did recently see a hummingbird on my bee balm, and you can imagine how exciting that was around here. Bonnie