White Admiral

White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis)

I haven't seen too many large butterflies this year. I haven't seen one Monarch. Lately though, I've noticed a few White Admirals like this one which is warming itself on a lilac leaf.

Monarch on a Honeysuckle

Monarch Butterfly(Danaus plexippus)

I finally got a picture of a monarch from closer than 20 feet away. I think this is the first picture of a honeysuckle bush I've taken. This invasive species is all over the place in the 1995 planting area. It is absent only in the darkest areas where little light reaches the forest floor. It doesn't seem to be aggressively invading the new planting areas though. Neither honeysuckle or buckthorn, the other common invasive bush, is present in the 2009 planting area.

Eastern Tailed Blue

Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas)

You can't see the tail very clearly in this picture unless you click to enlarge it, but one thought I had is that the tail might be a form of camouflage so that predators would not know which way the butterfly was facing. With the large black spot right by the tail being the false eye, and the tail being a false proboscis, the area behind the orange patch forms a crude head. Well, perhaps not a very good likeness, but then it isn't trying to fool Sherlock Holmes.

A Pretty Silvery Blue

This pretty Silvery Blue was hanging out in the 2011 naturalization area. The host plants for this species of butterfly are members of the pea family such as Bird's foot Trefoil and Purple Vetch. Bird's foot Trefoil does very well for the first couple of years after a lawn is left to go wild. It is now mostly absent from the 2009 naturalization area although there were great mats of it smothering out the competition in 2009 and 2010. In the 2011 naturalization area it is still doing very well.

Monarch Waystations

Last Thursday I went to the Fletcher Wildlife Garden for a guided tour. They are very interested in butterflies and have created a monarch waystation with milkweed for the caterpillars and wildflowers for the butterflies. I occasionally see Monarchs visiting the berm area, but they are very difficult to photograph in flight. The fellow in the picture to the right went past me 4 times before he stopped on the sumac long enough for me to snap this picture.




The 2009 naturalization area is very slowly becoming more attractive to Monarchs. Only a couple of patches of Milkweed, like the one above, are sprouting up in the 2009 square. Milkweed tends to come back year after year to the same location with multiple plants spreading out to form a clump. Since milkweed is quite common along the edges of the 1995 forest, I expect Milkweed has still not had enough time to get fully established in the 2009 naturalization area. Other staples of old fields and abandoned lots, such as Asters, Goldenrod, Mullein, Curly Dock, Canada Thistle and Queen Anne's Lace, are also slowly invading the 2009 naturalization area in what is now the 4th year without mowing. However, the variety of plants is still quite limited; some common species such as wild parsnip and raspberry are still absent. I looked over some of the milkweeds on the off chance that there was a caterpillar on one of them. Of course I didn't find any, but I did find another interesting bug. On the leaf of the milkweed above is a Roesel's Katydid, another introduced species from Europe that is spreading across eastern Canada and the Northeastern States.

Red Admiral

The dandelions have started flowering just in time for the red admiral butterflies (Vanessa Atalanta) who are very prominent right now. Biking along the road I must have passed half a dozen before I took this picture.

In Bloom:
Dandelion,
Scilla
Canada Plum (in NE corner: Prunus Nigra)

Monarch

I was thrilled to see this monarch flitting about yesterday. I think they are so beautiful and know that their numbers are declining. This is the first I have seen this summer. I saw him in the long grass on the north side of the berm.