i am so glad to finally be seeing a few swallowtail butterflies they are so pretty! here is one enjoying obedient plant. they seem to love this plant. next year i need to plant more flowers that attract butterflies.
kelly
swallowtails are out and about!
He's my favorite Swallowtail. Great picture.
Very pretty
Yes, They are out playing with friends like crazy this week.
Laurel
I try to photograph one and another variety shoves it off it's flower.
L
...and then I wonder can the day be any more butterfly beautiful when I see this...
thanks everyone : )
maypoplaurel what amazing pictures! wow that first one is so pretty! i have never seen a butterfly that color.
kelly
these two are sharing
i just love this one
and one last picture....i am in an area that still only has dial up internet available ugh it takes about 10 minutes for each picture to load lol
kelly
this guy in picture is the largest one i have seen in the garden he is so pretty!
Everyone's pictures are great! I can spend an hour outside with my camera in hand and not get the first shot of a butterfly. Then, when I'm in the house looking out the sunroom window, I see so many.
Ok let's see if we can guess the names these flying flowers.
Laura's first picture looks like some type of Skipper. A Silver-spotted Skipper, maybe? The coloring is throwing me off.
2nd picture: Most definiately a Swallowtail.LOL A dark form female Tiger?
3rd picture: With MayPops growing in Laura's property there's got to be Fritillaries, but which one? I'm thinking Varigated Frit, not sure
Now for Kelly's:
Kelly, your first picture of the two Tiger Swallowtails captures both a dark form female and a light form possibly a female, I'm not sure. This is an excellent picture of two Tigers and would be a great candidate for Bug Files. Just by looking at the picture, my untrained eye cannot see enough of the light form's blue band to determine if it's male or female. The light form female Tiger has more blue on her hind wing than the male.
Next picture I'm 99% sure it's the dark form female Tiger.
Last picture looks like a Spicebush ST more so than a female EBST. There are orange dots at the bottom of the hind wings of both of these ST's . The female EBST would have a black dot in the center of the orange where the Spicebush has a solid orange dot. The position of the butterfly doesn't show the orange dots, so I just can't tell for sure. Overall though the pattern looks more like a Spicebush.
I'm wrong more times than I'm right in iding butterflies, so if anyone can set me straight on my misses I'd appreciate hearing a positive id.
I'm 100% sure on these: Eastern Black Swallowtails. This morning's release out numbered any other release day so far. Fifteen eclosed so far by 10:00am, already released 8 of them.
Fantastic pics! Deborah, I am going to have to get out my books to determine which is which in your collage. The all yellow dots guy is so different than the others! Thanks for sharing, all of you.
I'm raising in this cage only EBST. The males have the double rows of yellow spots, the females have mostly blue, but both have the orange spot with the black center on the hind wing. I do all right iding in the field, but I really have a problem trying to in photos. I suppose some of the marks I try to look for get covered up or are at the wrong angle.
deborah very good pictures!
kelly
Thanks, Deborah, for helping put names to our BFs. I def. don't know my BFs but there are loads right now. We have seen plenty of caterpillars on the maypops and, even though they are growing with the cukes, we leave them. There are enough mayops to keep them happy. The butterflies also seem fond of rose of Sharon, raddish and endive flowers. Lots of hummers and dragonflies too. I can't get a photo of the dragonflies. They move if I try to get close.
Laurel
I thank yall for posting your pictures. I'can't seem to capture a good shot of one lately nectaring on flowers. I'm so anxious for the Monarchs to return.
Another reason why I am so happy we moved to NE Georgia....beautiful butterflies!!!
Sue M
I've been fortunate to get some pretty good butterfly pictures this summer. I'd have more swallowtails if the birds would lay off the caterpillars! Next time I think I'll keep my babies a butterfly box.
Here's another one!
Nice butterfly's everybody :)
any relation to Coach Dooley?... or are you by chance Coach Dooley?!! :)
Susan
Susan,
Ha ha ha! Yeah, I get that alot. Since I come from Dooleys that have been in GA for along time, we're probably somehow distantly related. But my Dad went to GA Tech, and my mom is a HUGE Tech sports fan (Dad isn't, oddly enough...), so UGA is a dirty word around my family!
ER, those photos are spectacular. Some of my best garden years with bugs, bees, veggies, etc. were the years we lived in Winonna Park on a little tiny lot. :)
Deborah, you and Beclu know a lot more about BFs than I. We have lots. I had several Dianas last month. I didn't get photos. Our garden borders woods, so perhaps that is why, We were keen to build butterfly houses, but learned they prefer woodlands. I do see them checking out our many birdhouses though.
Laurel
I saw 3 flying around my butterfly bush today!
Here is another picture
Shes precious!! What a sweet pic :)
Susan
i am loving all the pictures! keep sharing! i have taken any in the past few days. i will be glad to see fall this year the heat is horrible.
kelly
Ugh! My poor plants are dying. We need some rain. And the mosquitoes are so bad!!!
Congratulations to everyone for taking such pretty pictures. I am so happy to see butterflies - both here and in the garden