butterflies
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Monarchs, Mostly
All the Monarch caterpillars I’ve seen this month in Green-Wood. Not overwhelmed by the numbers, unlike two years ago. Black Swallowtail for a change of pace. *** I thought this Judith Butler interview on gender was excellent. It was an exchange of emails, so much better than a conversation; the written word is still the…
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Twofers and More
European Paperwasp and Two-spotted Scoliid Wasp. Clouded Sulphur (or is there some orange in there?) and something something skipper. Another skipper, in the background, along with an Common Eastern Bumblebee and a striped sweat bee. Monarch and more Common Eastern BBs. Two species of metallic sweat bees. Monarch and skipper. From the top clockwise: European…
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Butterflies & Ballots
The small dark butterflies are a confusing lot, especially when just flitting by. Give them a chance to perch, though, and things can get a little clearer. This is a Common Sootywing. These are both Wild Indigo Duskywings, I think. There are several other duskywing species, including the classical inspired Horace’s and Juvenal’s, but I’m…
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More Butterflies
Rare to see an Eastern Tailed-blue open like this. Male Monarch with bent wing. Very origami, but still eating. Quite a year for skippers. Spicebush Swallowtail with close-up field mark: the Federation of Planets blue-ish wedge between bottom two and the third inner orange spots. Compare with: The orange boulder wall of the Black Swallowtail.…
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Monarchy
More Monarch eggs! On common milkweed, in a couple of different spots in Green-Wood and Bush Terminal Park. I’ve yet to spot a caterpillar, but this poop is suggestive.
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Butterflies
Red Admiral. Orange Sulphur. Clouded Sulphur. Black Swallowtail. Spicebush Swallowtail. Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Question Mark. Red Hairstreak. Fiery Skipper (male). Eastern Tailed-blue. Summer Azure. Sachem (female left, male right).
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Tiger Swallowtail
A couple of caterpillars of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. When they are in their early stages or instars, they look a bit like bird turds. But when you look closer, your larger-than-average predator brain will note some curiosities. The “eyes” are fake, by the way.(Some caterpillars pretend to be twigs…) As they get older,…
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Monarch Eggs
Monarch butterfly laying an egg on an emergent common milkweed leaf on Sunday in Green-Wood. This little plant is an outlier from the patch here, in danger of being mown or “weeded,” alas. I also watched her deposit eggs on two much taller, already flowering, plants that were part of the official patch. Closer up,…
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The Return of Monarchy
Saw my first Monarch Butterfly yesterday. A male. Nectaring on milkweed in Green-Wood.
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Homero Gómez González
At home, the oligarchs poison us slowly, with more shit in the food supply, more sewage in the waterways, more pollution in the air, water, and soil. Trump and his monstrous allies stand for profits over people, very much at the expense of our lives. (Their cultists, the Fascist Fifth of the population, are seemingly…
Backyard and Beyond 