Happily Munching .....

As today started out raining and continued most of the day I thought I would have to resort to an indoor blip.

But around mid-morning the rain stopped for a little while allowing me to check out what was happening in the back yard.  I took the macro lens and the tripod (I'm not good enough with the macro lens to go free hand!) and went exploring.

I first started on the sunflowers ..... check out extra #1.  It was quite damp and cool due to the rain and there weren't many bees out. I got lucky with this extra shot.  

I would have been pretty happy with this picture but then ......

I went to the other side of the yard to take pictures of the flowers over there and that's when I spotted this monarch butterfly caterpillar.  (I hope I have identified this correctly.)  He/she was quite still as I was taking lots of shots and because of the poor lighting I was forced to use the flash.  I wasn't even sure if he/she was still alive until I saw it move .... see extra #2!