Great Butterfly Day!
Wow! I saw lots of butterflies in my garden this afternoon. At least its a lot for where I live. There were 4 large butterflies flying all close to the same time. Three swallowtails were all out there at the exact time even.
And – the best part – a butterfly I’ve only just previously seen fly through quickly and leave: a Zebra Swallowtail! You might remember that I mentioned seeing Zebra caterpillars recently when we were walking around at Shaw Nature Reserve. We had just gotten back from getting groceries and I went back to close the door and saw it right outside on some purple cone flowers. I ran back in and got the camera, but it wasn’t there. I walked all through the yard in the back and everything and thought for certain it had left – but then I found it! I got few pictures of it that were pretty good, they don’t like to hold their wings still though, so it isn’t easy.
It eventually started nectaring way high up on a white butterfly bush of mine. It seemed to prefer it over the purple ones.
Here it is on some rattlesnake master:
And now on the butterfly bush:
And then while I was still watching the Zebra, a yellow form Tiger Swallowtail and a dark form Tiger Swallowtail flew into my garden and starting nectaring on my plants:
And a little while after that a Monarch stopped by. It first was nectaring on my Iron Weed then resting on some pipevine where I was able to get a good picture of it:
A little later I also saw a Buckeye in my husbands ‘Zen’ garden area:
It was awfully hot out there though and I started getting a big overheated and had to come in, last I saw that Zebra Swallowtail was still there. It had to have been out there at least a half an hour. Definitely the longest I’ve ever seen one in my garden!
on July 27th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
WOW! what marvelous photographs! I am a VERY amateur photographer, and am impressed on how technically well done your photos are. I spend lots of time shooting small animals, with a moderately good macro lense. I do not seem to get results like yours though. I cannot afford lots of excellent equipment, I have a Pentax k100D and a 70-300 macro lense, f4-5.6.
I think you must have been using much better equipment than I have, or else you know some terrific things that I don’t.
Anyway, just wanted to compliment you on the photos ….Pete
on August 1st, 2008 at 8:04 am
Am enjoying your blog. Thanks for the helpful information!
on August 4th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Wow -I banner day!
What plant is the Buckeye sitting on?
For some reason we haven’t had many butterflies this year yet in my area. Usually by now the Tiger Swallowtails & Monarchs are swarming all over my Joe Pye Weed, but I haven’t seen a single one on them yet.
on August 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Wow…wonderful pictures of some beautiful species! Nice!