Today was a gorgeous day. I was invited to attend a Cubs game with my coworkers, but it was a last minute invite, so I opted to take off from work early to spend some quality time with my honey, and my camera, instead.
We had a late lunch and headed over to Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn, IL. They’ve been working on a butterfly garden over the past year and officially opened it a few months ago. At that time we didn’t see any butterflies, which was disappointing. Of course, this isn’t inside an enclosure, so it’s dependent on the native wildlife to want to spend time there. So imagine our surprise when we were greeted by a garden full of Painted Ladies, just like the butterfly that was in my patio garden yesterday. But here’s the most exciting part – we saw a green hummingbird! I was so thrilled because I’ve never seen one in Illinois before. I’ve heard they lived here, but as far as I was concerned, it was just a myth. Guess I was wrong. They are really cool … I wish I saw them more often. Even when we on vacation last year in Arizona and California where they are supposedly more common, I only saw one in San Diego at Sea World. So that was really cool. I couldn’t get a picture of it, though, because it was way too fast.
Pictures from today’s excursion are here.