Butterfly Visitors!

 We've had lots and lots of butterflies

this summer. Right now it seems

that we have a lot of 

swallowtails!

So - I thought I'd take a moment to

point out the difference between the

Spicebush Swallowtail above and

the Black Swallowtail, below.

These two are often confused and even

I have a hard time telling which is

which. But - look at the fore-wings!

The Spicebush Swallowtail

has one row of spots and the

Black Swallowtail has more!

There is a third variety that looks

a lot like these two.

The Tiger Swallowtail.

He looks like the Spicebush and has one

row of spots, but he will have

a red dot on each of his hind wings. 

Other visitors this week were:

 The Monarch!

 Another Spicebush Swallowtail!

 Giant Swallowtails!

 Another Giant Swallowtail!

 And another Black Swallowtail!

The girls and I love watching the butterflies 

and humming birds and learning 

what we can about them!

A White Lined Sphinx

 This moth is often mistaken for a

hummingbird. He flies fast, and flaps 

his wings into a blur and he really

does resemble one. I often call

him a hummingbird moth, but he

is actually a White Lined Sphinx.

He sucks nectar from the flowers

with his long straw like tongue.

And when he is not feeding, he

simply rolls his straw like tongue up.

I liked this photo, even though it's

not as sharp as it should be

because I had never noticed that

feature of the White Lined Sphinx before!

This is another creature that frequents 

our little butterfly garden. 

The Butterfly Garden

Our little butterfly garden has not been

as pretty this year as it has in years past.

The weather has been a little weird

I think that has some of the

flowers confused. They're not sure

if it is spring, summer or fall,

and so they're not quite sure

what to do.

We have had a good crop

of butterflies, though!

I've counted as many as 12

species in a day!

 This Gulf Fritillary is new to the

garden this year. I love his shiny

silvery patches on his wings.

He's really beautiful!

 The Buckeyes have been plentiful!

There are four or five in the garden

almost every single day.

 These little crescents are common, too.

We see them all the time and they

seem to run in little flocks.

There are four on the coneflower above.

Can you see them?

And another crescent. This guy is lucky

to have found a flower to perch on.

See those green leaves in

the background?

That's a watermelon plant!

Grace spit seeds into the garden

last summer and now her

watermelon have taken over.

It's choking out the flowers so the

butterflies might have a little less

to eat, but it'll be feeding us, soon!

The watermelon are almost ripe!



Little Visitors

These little visitors

hang out in our backyard!

 I don't know why but I

find them fascinating!

 They're so tiny and so fast

and I have tried over and over

to get some good pictures

of them. I've done

OKAY.... but not really GOOD!

But, now, getting

their picture is easy!

 My husband

a.k.a. Grandpa around here

came up with a

wonderful idea!

See!

He set the camera up

on a tripod and I can operate it with a

remote from the back door.

So there is no more flying away

when I run out with a camera!

Am I married to a genius or what?

Butterflies

 Our little butterfly garden is growing nicely and we

have had lots of visitors!

We get a lot of these - Red Admirals!

(and yeah, I can plainly see that they are orange, but that is their technical name)

 We also get quite a few of these

Great Spangled Fritillary Butterflies!

 And we get a lot of

West Coast Ladies!

(Grace has not asked about the West Coast Men)

West Coast Ladies look like Painted Ladies!

The only real difference is the dots on the hind wings.

In a Painted Lady they are white and in a

West Coast Lady they are blue!

And another Red Admiral!

Grace really enjoyed chasing this butterfly.

We chased it all around the yard and the whole

time she was talking to it.

She'd say... "It's okay! I just want to be your friend!"

"I won't hurt you!"

"Come on sweetie.... I just want to look! I won't touch your

pretty wings!"

"Who painted your wings? They're so pretty!"

It was so cute!