Monarch on Mexican Sunflower

After I visited the sunflowers at the Arboretum on Tuesday, I still felt like I needed MORE sunflowers. So I got the idea of stopping at Tudek Park on the way in to work on Wednesday. In prior years, I have spotted lovely sunflowers in the community gardens there.

And I did indeed see some sunflowers, though many of them were well past peak. I spent some quality time with the barn and the big white oak tree that I love. I also visited the butterfly gardens, and even though it was quite early in the morning, I did indeed see a few butterflies on the flowers there.

The butterfly gardens have a nice variety of flowers, and this particular monarch was very taken by these bright orange Mexican sunflowers. They are a variety of Tithonia; which particular one, I do not know. But what a color show!

The soundtrack is in honor of the Mexican sunflower. Here's a fun little tune from the early 80s by Wall of Voodoo called Mexican Radio. Wikipedia describes their music as "a fusion of synthesizer-based new wave music with the western soundtrack style of Ennio Morricone." Well, I guess that's all we need to know! I also noodled around and discovered their cover of the Johnny Cash favorite Ring of Fire, so I'm including it here just for fun. I am still deciding what I think of it! The music begins one minute in.