Pollination Week...

Right now it is Pollination Week (June 21 - 27, 2010) it occurs during the last week of June every year. See this website for more details...

I don't have many recent pictures of pollinators in my garden, so I pulled up some pictures from the last couple of summers...

I rather liked how the body on this Cabbage White Butterfly was still and the wings were moving...

Check out those pollen pocket filled legs baby... Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

And the skipper sucking out the nectar with its proboscis. 

The Monarch Butterfly on a Zinnea...

The close up of the Zinnea and its pollen anthers...

And the Skipper again...

I think it is SO cool to see how every flower is so different and how it rubs its pollen off onto the insects that land on it to feed (notice the white right above the skipper's head).

And our official State of Delaware Butterfly: the Yellow Tiger Swallowtail. I've seen a lot of these so far this year. They are pretty territorial too - with other Swallowtails, not just the Yellow ones...

Pollinators can be more than insects too - I just tend to take pictures of the insects on flowers because that is where my eye and camera tend to go. And for some reason now, I have the song from Grease (the movie with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John) stuck in my head... you know it: 

"Reproduction, Reproduction... Put your pollen tubes to work..." It's in there with all the character voices singing it too... Sorry if I got it stuck in your head now too...

And if I were really good, I would have posted this on Tuesday, but seeing as how it is Wednesday, almost Thursday, I better get it up there that this is my post for Garden Party Tuesday too!