Gulf Fritillary, Hummingbird Moth, Painted Lady
Later in the day, birds were mostly quiet, but I found more butterflies than on any day so far this year. Almost all were in our own or neighbors’ lantana blooms. One neighbor has several large bushes of orange lantana, and these seem especially popular.
In one orange lantana bush, two brilliant orange Gulf Fritillaries, one large, graceful Black Swallowtail, and three Tiger Swallowtails all visited the blooms. In a small patch of yellow lantana beside it, there were a very few small Fiery Skippers, but also a Hummingbird Moth – a small amber and black moth with a long abdomen, a fan-shaped dark tail, and clear wings that whir like hummingbird wings as the moth hovers over a blossom. This one was a particular species of Hummingbird Moth known as a Snowberry Clearwing. At first glance, it looks more like a bumblebee than a moth – but its body is longer, with a very different shape and behavior. Although its transparent wings whir in a blur, its movement is not fluttery or flighty, but more deliberate. It glides methodically from flower to flower, staying for a long while, going carefully over this one field of blooms.
In our own yellow lantana patch, two big, floaty Tiger Swallowtails, one Gulf Fritillary and a pretty Painted Lady butterfly were visiting. The Painted Lady was the first I’ve seen this summer, and it stayed for several minutes, time to try to soak in and admire its complex colors and patterns – a bright kaleidoscope of orange, black and white on the upper side of the wings, and then, when it folds the wings up, the underside of the hind wings shows a more lacy, delicate pattern of pale brown and fawn and white, and a row of four small, dark eyespots along the edge of the hindwing. Painted Ladies are the most widespread of all butterfly species, occurring almost worldwide, and they are known especially for spectacular long-distance migrations. In North America, they migrate southward in the fall and northward in the winter, following several different paths and sometimes taking several generations along the way. So in watching this one small creature here, I wonder where it might have been, where it might have traveled. While they are abundant and widespread, they are said to be more common west of the Mississippi, which may be one reason I have not seen them often here. All butterflies and moths have been very scarce so far this summer here – but it’s encouraging to see a few more as the months go on. The pure magic and beauty of a butterfly is now so endangered – any butterfly – all butterflies – that it is heartbreaking to think future generations might know them only as memories or tales from the past, like fairies and elves.