butterflies
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Late Insecta
Not a single bee, wasp, or butterfly spotted yesterday in Green-Wood during lunch. There was a suggestion or two of fly, and at least one spider. The first real day of winter, then, bug-wise. Last weekend, though, these stragglers were spotted: Differential Grasshopper, a big one. One of the confusing Syrphid flies. Clouded Sulphur. Vinegar…
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Butterflies Are Free
Recognize this? This was a surprise at the recent Whitman exhibit at the Morgan Library and Museum, where the image for the exhibit shows a famous photograph of the older WW holding a butterfly. Yup, one and the same. (Bigger on the M’s site…) And in that spirit: A full house, Monarchs high.
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Chrysalis
September 17th. I noticed this chrysalis hanging by silken threads in the doorway of a mausoleum. I thought it was Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. September 18th. Parenthetical: there was a spider right next door. September 21st. I don’t know what’s going here. Breached by something? October 5th. “For the first time, the wealthiest Americans paid a…
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Butterfly Reprise
What a year for butterflies! All these were seen in the last two weeks. I’ve now seen 28 species in Kings County, according to iNaturalist. Plus one skipper, oh those bedeviling skippers, only identified to genus level. I meant to post this yesterday, but I screwed up the scheduling. It was 94F on Wednesday and…
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Cats!
When a body meets a body coming through the… Apiaceae. Black Swallowtail caterpillar fit to pupate. The Asteroid, AKA Goldenrod Hooded Owlet. A reprise of the Common Buckeye caterpillar. Five were seen in the same small patch. The blue spines! Our old friend the Monarch. On the same day, two days ago, a female was…
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Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright
I’m missing the egg stage, but otherwise here’s the run: The first few instars of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail mimic bird droppings. This one was on the nearly horizontal surface of a magnolia leaf, right out in the open. Finally saw one! The caterpillar is green in youth. Or is that middle age? Old age,…
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Viceroy vs. Monarch
Limenitis archippus. Danaus plexippus. Viceroy pictured first. The black band across the hindwings is the most obvious field-mark difference. In the Southwest, however, this band can be faint or even missing. The Viceroy is also smaller than the Monarch, which is one of our largest butterfly species. This Viceroy was seen, along with a couple…
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The Mosaic
All this week I’ve been detailing little pieces of the great mosaic of life around here. That’s what this blog has been doing for years now, sure, but this week’s cicada / Cicada-killer wasp / Mockingbird sequence was vary connect-the-dots. Usually I see something and then say something, building up observation after observation, painting a…
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Still Under the Lilac
Joining the wasps under the lilac were three species of sap-happy butterfly. A couple of Red Admirals quietly suckled. But it was the Polygonia genus butterflies that were really stealing the show. This is a Comma (P. comma). More views of Commas. Here we have both a Comma, lower left, and a Question Mark. These…
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More Butterflies
Common Sootywing. A small black skipper, the only example seen on this day in Green-Wood, where all these butterflies but one were seen. Rather better pictures than our last encounter, when there was also only one to be seen. The way the fall of light accents the scaly edges of this particularly brightly-spotted individual is…
Backyard and Beyond 