We've had a very mild winter here in Florida so far but the butterflies have been scarce of late. I finally spotted a Zebra Longwing that stopped to enjoy the Pentas today:

Butterflies seem to love Pentas lanceolata flowers, especially the red ones! I have red, white and pink but the butterflies, moths, skippers and bees seem to flock to the red variety. Cloudless Sulphur butterfly this afternoon:

Excellent photos. Nice to see some BFs during the depth of winter.

Thanks J. We've been very warm down here this winter ... until last night which dipped into the mid 40's! Our high today is only supposed to reach 64ºF - a 17º drop from yesterday's high of 81. I'm hoping we don't get any frosts or freezes this winter because I've already heavily pruned a couple of Hibiscus and other things in the yard! I usually wait until March 1st to do any pruning but was bored when working out in the yard a few days ago and decided to go ahead and chop things back a bit.

Weather has been a roller coaster here too. On Jan 11th it reached 60°, on the 13th, the low that night was 6°.

Oh my goodness ... 6º?? Now, THAT is COLD!! Brrr

Makes me shiver to even think of it! This is one of the Red Admirals that I put bits of over-ripe bananas out for.

Oh Linda, I love that photo! I have some very ripe bananas that I was going to use for Banana Bread but a few are just too ripe so I might put some out for the butterflies tomorrow.

I guess I'm kind of weird. When certain kinds of butterflies are around, I'll go to the store and look for the ripest bananas I can find. That way they have a head start at getting over-ripe! Some other kinds of fruit can be used also.

I saw a Viceroy in the Gardens at work last year. I'm hoping I can snap some pictures this year if I keep my camera on hand. I never eat my banana, so maybe I'll find a secluded spot to leave them and attract some.