Back in July -- Blue Jays, Purple Flowers, and Hummingbird Moth

Way back in July, (it wasn't really that long ago was it?) all the bluejays in the neighborhood descended on the feeders at once.  There were at least 15, and can they raise a real ruckus!  Most were this year's fledglings mixed in with a few of their older sibs and, of course, their parents.  If you look carefully, you can see 8 of them in the photo below.

Too lazy to take their own seeds from the feeders, these 2 juvies were begging for food while the adult seems to throw its wings up in defeat.  I hope those 2 can manage for themselves now that the cold weather is on its way. 

 Along the river back in July were lots of wildflowers including these lovely purple ones.  I think they are a vetch of some sort, but I am not really sure. 

 Nearby in some lavendar colored flowers was this fantastic hummingbird moth (Hemaris diffinis).

 

It is also called a clearwing moth because it loses most of the scales from its wings soon after it emerges.

 

By now it has surely laid its eggs, or fertilized some eggs, as the case may be, in time for the larvae to over-winter in cocoons.  Somehow the summer went by far too quickly ...