DAILY PICTURES # 109

I goofed , I meant to say ,, If your vision is good , you see the silver border around this meadow fritillary , It also a darker coloration than it should be ,,
Things are a million combinations , the Fritillaries , I have seen them as lightly in color as a Sulphur also ..

Should ask Mrs_ Ed to get out the book once in a while , it confuses me ...

Thanks for your replies regarding the frit - I got out my Butterflies of the East Coast and compared again and I am thinking that Mrs Ed is right. That circle on the forewing is pictured on the Variegated Frit. That fits with the size and silver bordering and concave forewing margin. The book doesn't mention eye color for the Varieagated. I am going to go back Sunday when the farm is open for business again with a fully charged camera and try to get some dorsal wing photos. I think after Skippers Frits are some the hardest to identify.

It really is helpful on the Frits to get both sides of the wings. Especially in the case of the Great Spangled, as you can see that light band that is an identifier. Also, there's no substitute for actually viewing the size. That's why I was thinking Aphrodite, because it looked a little smaller on that zinnia. shrug.

Jhur, that's a good photo of the butterfly with the bee. It's good for size comparison.

Other than cabbage whites, not much happening right now. I'm really hoping to get some late season skippers. So few of those this year.

For whatever reason all but one of the 7 cats have died. The last hanging in there, eating but not thriving. Eating and pooping are good signs though. I will continue to hope for the best.

A.

brenda. Then likely Great Spangled. I'd say Aphrodities are just about the same size as monarchs, maybe a little smaller.

The Frit that I pictured was small - between a Cabbage White and Painted Lady sized. The Silver Bordered is shown as extirpated in MD in Butterflies of the East Coast. I didn't see a single one yesterday for more photos - it was gray and a thunderstorm was imminent.

Yesterday there was more variety - many fewer Monarchs who have been harassing each other and the Swallowtails. They seemed to leave the Painted Lady and the Sulphurs alone.

The Skipper is a Zabulon female as far as I can tell.

ottahand7 ) pretty flowers , pretty butterflies ,,
Zinnia Gardens are GAS for quick time pics of BF's aren't they . lol ^_^

It all makes for a nice restful few minutes to enjoy once in a while ..

Here is a White-rayed Pixie (aka White-rayed Metalmark) [Melanis cephise], a tropical butterfly known in southern Mexico and also in Nicaragua. I was happy to find him or her in the garden because they are only occasional visitors. They have a habit of perching on the underside of leaves as this one is doing. The scarlet color of the 4 dots, which is brilliant, is not well represented in this photo. The sky was threatening to dump some heavy rains as is its habit in September and the light was not good.

The White-rayed Pixie (Melanis cephise) is still around and it appears there are at least two of them. Here is better photo (not a great one). I am hoping perhaps some Pixie caterpillars might be in my future.

Ummmm...no this one is better...

no, i think it would have to be this one...

vitrsna, you have such beautiful and unusual butterflies. It rained here today so the butterflies stayed hidden. But I did see a strange looking caterpillar in my side yard jungle. "Crazy old man" has a potted sumac. A leaf like caterpillar was firmly attached. Ugly, dragon like caterpillar will become a Showy Emerald moth. Hopefully I will get to see an adult soon.

C_A_lvy - Very very interesting caterpillar.

CA, it never ceases to amaze me the designs nature can come up with. It would be great to see the chrysalis as well. You will follow it around to see where it pupates, right? The caterpillar looks like an origami dragon to me.

The White-rayed Pixie was not in the bug files so i was trying to get a decent photo to go with the entry :).

Got a couple of pictures of a hummer in the back yard the other day. The one with the buried beak cracks me up!

Cool moth pic CA!

Russell

Here is a Red-Spotted Purple that dropped in yesterday. We have some wild cherries in the woods and our neighbors have some aspens so hopefully we will have more next year.

My first baby! I found the idea for using a pop-up laundry bag in the sticky thread in this forum and bought one- just yesterday- so I could move the chrysalis indoors, out of the cold. This morning, this is what I found... also photos of the chrysalis taken 9/5 & 9/13.

Congratulations Sallie! It's a girl! And very nice photos to do her justice.

I think I saw the whole sum of two butterflies today. GEE............ A white one and a Monarch and they were very elusive.

As for the day before, it was orange on orange......

I was just complaining that we haven't seen many Queens like we usually do; walked out to the car and there are three on the mist flower; yea!!

Sheila, spotted a Queen here yesterday. It had apparently just eclosed and was occasionally flapping its wings. Then flew to a tickseed coreopsis and began nectaring, After a few minutes it gradually flew away into a nearby woods. Considered a stray here in west central Arkansas but must be reproducing during its short term stay,

Nice pictures Ivy!

5 or 6 of these Painted Lady BF's today , best I could get , kind of camera shy ,, a dark gray BF flew through my vision , but not enough recognize , might of been a Duskywing , about the size of the Lady BF's it was .
A few hummingbirds as the sunshines

vitrsna nice Tropicals !!!

Ivy Love seeing those Queen BF's too , we do not get them ,,

Painted Lady
Milkweed seeding , complete with Beetles , icky things

I'm just learning about butterflies and identification. Painted Lady was a new one for me this summer! I saw another today, but didn't have my camera. First photo, 8/16. 2nd & 3rs- 9/13.

Pretty.

Keep an eye out for American Lady too. Very similar to the PL, but have two large eyespots instead of the five the PL has.

Has anyone in my zone seen a common buckeye this year? Should have a bunch this time of year, but not seeing any.

Mrs _Ed I have been wondering all season , no Buckeye , not a one ,, very , very , strange ,,
Usually there are so many here they are landing on me , like flies ,, uck ,, but the point is clear , lol

I don't think I've ever seen one. I'm sure I must have, but didn't recognize it. This year is the first time I've really tried to get photos of everything new I've seen. Lots of Monarchs and Painted Lady, but nothing resembling a Buckeye.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark), Eastern Comma, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail and Spring Azure.

You folks in IL. and IN. have had a great butterfly year but no Buckeyes. They must have migrated south to my backyard.
SallieKr , great pics and a variety of species. Hard to believe you are just a beginner. Keep sharing.

Busy day for Monarchs here. I have three at one time on the Tithonia. Two hummingbirds and scads of cabbage whites.

Thanks C_A_Ivy... I forgot one ;-) Hummingbird Moth. This one always looks like a bumble bee, to me, from a distance.

I get all excited when I sight a new species of butterfly. Yesterday, I spotted a Yehl skipper nectaring Frostweed flowers. A rare sighting so I'm still excited.

SallieKr, your Hummingbird moth is a Snowberry Clearwing since the front legs are black whereas the Hummingbird clearwing has buff front legs. They do look like giant bumble bees at a distance and there movement makes them difficult to photograph. Nice photo.

Mrs. Ed, shoo those Monarchs and hummers southward. It's going to get cold soon.

I don't know how anyone can ID a Skipper. We have lots of them, too, but so many look so similar! I have the Audubon Guides series of apps for Android, which also gives me access to their website Guides (http://www.audubonguides.com/home.html). I've also spent a lot of time searching through BugFiles here. I've only started trying to ID butterflies and moths since spring 2012, the first season after I retired. Now I have time!

And thanks for the moth ID. I thought it was Hemaris thysbe or Common Clearwing. I have some photos from previous years I'll go through and see if I've actually seen both varieties. We also have a fairly plain looking brown variety I need to look up. When I was growing up in Phoenix, AZ my Mom had honeysuckle vines covering our screened-in back porch. We had lots of a brown HB moth, but I never saw a hummingbird?!? Weird.

I've started a Journal category for "Butterflies & Moths" here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/journals/vbc/SallieKr/107165/

Now I just need to finish sorting through several years of pictures to find more to add.

Yes, I plant the tithonia for the September stars and those are the monarchs and hummingbirds. Plus, they are pretty and start blooming as the sunflowers fade.

They have shorter varieties now that would be good for closer to the house.

I planted this variety one year. It's a nice size like a zinnia. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55104/

I plant it in the late spring just like I do zinnias and sunflowers. I had some germination problems for a couple of years. They need good water to get established.