I thought I'd begin a new thread for June. I hope y'all will share photo's of the flying beauties that visit your area!

I've seen a few Butterflies lately; flitting around so fast! This is a Gulf Fritillary that landed long enough for me to get a couple of shots:

Good shot.

Thanks J ... the red mulch in the background of the first shot makes it kind of washed out and I got my own shadow in the second shot.

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly showdown with a Brown Anole Lizard. The lizard lunged, but the B'fly got away ... this time.

I was walking around the garden this morning and spotted a single Monarch Caterpillar on the Scarlet Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica):

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly & Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar:

Monarch Butterfly:


Another Monarch Butterfly and Monarch Caterpillar

Another Monarch this morning:

Lin, those are all awesome shots!!

Thanks Margaret!

Ah, love those Monarchs, Lin! I sure do hope for some better population numbers on the Monarchs next year. It's depressing how few there are left...and I'm afraid the Queens (which also use milkweed) are declining in a similar fashion.
I have good news! Not sure if anyone is familiar with the Snowberry Clearwing Moth, but I'm pretty sure I've got its caterpillars on my Coral Honeysuckle! I've always wanted to see those! It makes it so much more interesting to have enough good host plants in your yard!

Oh Linda, that is so cool! I can't wait to hear about (and see photo's) of the progress of that caterpillar! I had to google to see pic's of that moth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... I thought it sounded familiar and yep, I saw one a few years ago.

Okay, I got confirmation of ID! A lady who has raised them before said they are easy to raise and gave me an url for info. Ha! We will see! I didn't want my big Coral Honeysuckle defoliated, but it's okay. I have one more of that plant in a pot and a couple of another Lonicera species. These are special. Not just the one caterpillar, either, there's a bunch of them on the plant, haven't counted yet. The sneaky mother didn't even let me know what she did or I could have seen the eggs and first instar! Here's the url I was given:
http://www.silkmoths.bizland.c...

My calamondin tree is attracting this butterfly today..up and down it goes

Linda, that is a really cool moth, I will be on the lookout for them, looks like they could be in my area.

Tarev, very nice shots!

Thanks Margaret!

I was able to get some pictures of Strawberry Clearwing last September in a state park here

J, those are pretty good shots of the strawberry clearwing!

tarev: Great photo's of that lovely Swallowtail ... really pretty!

J: Great shots of that moth ... I just love the *plump* moths!

A lucky shot of this one yesterday--is this a spicebush? It's on the ground next to a chrysanthemum.