What a difference the clouds make

 Another Oakland Camp area adventure.  I got out there around 9:00 and suddenly felt cold.  Cloud cover and no jacket.  I then realized I forgot to bring my camera.  I'm not too good with the camera on my iPhone.  Usually have trouble seeing stuff on the screen with the glare and my aging eyes.  However, look what I got?  The cloud cover not only eliminated the glare on my screen, but also tends to render the colors of flowers more natural and less likely to produce "noise."  As a bonus, this is the first time I've seen a crab spider on Pennyroyal (above).  I was still hoping to improve on my record of only one Red Milkweed Beetle for the season - found yesterday - so I headed straight to the best milkweed patch in this particular area.

 This dropping cluster of milkweed blossoms (above) seemed to have particularly bright and beautiful sepals, so this side view intrigued me.  As I viewed the above photo, enlarged, on my screen, I noticed a little bug. I came in for closer and closer shots and figured I'd see what I had when I got these photos onto my laptop screen.

 Wow!  It was a plume moth.  Suddenly, as in this last photo (below), I decided the "subject" was the plume moth rather than the sepals of the milkweed.

 Then, nearby, I saw the Common Checkered Clerid Beetle on another milkweed.  I usually always find them on daisies, so this was a treat.

 As if Mother Nature was reading my mind, just a few steps away was another Clerid, but this time on a daisy.  This trip was already exceeding expectations.

 The milkweeds seem to grow in patches of like kind.  The Purple, or Heartleaf Milkweed is nearly done for the season with flowers turning to pods and the leaves looking brown and beat up.  I didn't try for any photos of them.  But after checking all the Showy Milkweeds in this particular patch, I moved on to my favorite spots for Narrow-leaf Milkweeds (below).

 What a treat!  A very colorful aphid gathering, along with a nondescript black beetle.

 Finally, I wandered a patch of Pennyroyal, many of which were resting places for bees that had not yet woken up on this cool morning.  Easier, if less interesting, photos were taken, but none m,ore exciting than the one at the top with a crab spider.