Thanks Rita.

My husband and I took a motorcycle ride today to the Nat'l Wildlife Refuge which is @ 35 miles south of here but I didn't get any butterfly photo's ... things were blooming and we did see some b'fly's but they were too quick for my camera. I did however get pic's of a couple of birds, raccoon's .... and a Gator!

A Red Admiral on nettle (host plant). Those butterflies were here earlier, then disappeared.

I spotted a Red Admiral yesterday


And another Palmedes Swallowtail:

Beautiful butterflies !!!!

LindaTX8 said:I felt kind of sorry for this poor little bedraggled butterfly, obviously it's had a tough life. Some kind of metalmark, but can't tell exactly which.

Linda: I am so not good at comparing photo's but could the butterfly in your earlier post/photo be the Fatal Metalmark?

http://www.naba.org/chapters/n...

http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/l...

http://people.duke.edu/~jspipp...

I could take a photo of this today. I don't know its name.

Ooh, so pretty! Good picture! Makes the buckeyes I usually see look not so colorful by comparison! I don't know which species, but the genus name should be Junonia for all buckeyes.

You are good identifying butterflies Linda !! I've been searching in the web and I found its name: Junonia genoveva hilaris

Very pretty Buckeye!

Another visitor today

Another one today. The Spanish comon name is "espejito". It is a Agraulis vanillae

Very nice Ceci!

We see the Argraulis vanillae (Gulf Fritillary) here during summer and fall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

The Argraulis vanillaes usually come to my passiflora caerulea. Nothing is left of the poor plant after the caterpillars have fed on it.

Great pics and beautiful butterflies ladies!

Caterpillars do love Passiflora leaves! This is a photo from a couple of years ago of the caterpillar of Argraulis vanillae (Gulf Fritillary). It was feeding on my Passiflora 'Lady Margaret':

I'm glad those Gulf Fritillaries made it through the winter around here. It couldn't have been easy for them through all the freezes.
I went to a native plant meeting last night and the speaker from Boerne was talking about the Monarchs and some factors they responsible for the 56% decrease in population within one year. They've got a project going to locate "safe" milkweed for people. Many of the nursery-grown milkweeds are sprayed with pesticides and (even worse) systemic pesticides (not safe for caterpillars for 3 months to one year depending on what they used and should have all leaves removed that were present when bought). I was shocked when they revealed that one of the area native plant nurseries sells milkweeds sprayed with systemic pesticides and refused to stop doing that. The nursery milkweed are important for those who don't want to raise milkweed from seed themselves and don't know anyone who does who can share. I've got a few dozen tiny seedling milkweeds outside right now, but they won't be ready to share for quite a while. I've heard a few things lately that I didn't know about the Monarchs. Like that 95° or up can be lethal to the caterpillars. Well, if I have any of those caterpillars this year I'll raise them all indoors just in case it gets that hot. But I'd do that anyway. Hmmm, no wonder they don't usually hang around in Texas in the summer! Some people lately tried to tell me that some Monarchs are in San Antonio in one area year-round now, but I really don't believe that. Any of their caterpillars present during the summer would be toast there unless raised inside in the A/C! I have to go into that city fairly often and have never seen any Monarchs hanging out there outside of the usual migration/breeding periods of time. I lived in that city most of my life until I moved here in 1989. Much more peaceful out here. One of the many articles addressing the Monarch problems lately:

http://news.nationalgeographic...

Linda, I grow asclepia curassavica in my garden for the monarchs. If you look at he pictures of the Argraulis vanillae, the butterfly is on a asclepia flower. I have collected some seeds I can share with anyone of you who wants them.
The article you posted is very interesting. I had never heard of the threat that climate extremes could bring.

Linda, Thanks so much for the link to that video; it's so sad to see the decline of the Monarch Butterflies and really sad about the pesticide use killing the Milkweed.

Ceci, I'm so glad you grow milkweed and have Monarchs! I also have the Asclepias curassavica (one of 3 milkweed species I grow), so I don't need seeds, but thanks for offering. Lin, it IS sad! Although the Monarch is the one talked about, other butterfly species seem to be declining also, at least from what I actually see here. Not very many of the swallowtails seem to be around much in my area, compared to several years ago. The Queen butterflies (also uses the milkweed as a host plant) are seldom seen around here compared to the past. Some kinds of butterflies I haven't seen in a couple of years. I'm hoping if the drought lets up in parts of the U. S., it will get better.