Can Never Have Too Many Butterflies

tanjabrittonwriter 60 Comments

When I asked about your favorite display in my Art on the Streets 2024 post two weeks ago, “Colorado Butterflies” by Ian Stewart garnered the most votes. This did not come as a surprise, as it is a magnificent mural and as many (most?) people tend to be enthralled by these beautifully winged creatures.

“Colorado Butterflies” by Ian Stewart

Detail of the center of “Colorado Butterflies”

One fellow blogger, Linda, creator of The Mindful Migraine Blog, intriguingly compared the butterflies’ metamorphosis with the changes we undergo as bloggers: “I suspect the butterfly resonates with so many of us because bloggers tend to be creative, attentive people, interested in perpetual growth and transformation… we look and listen, read and write, absorb the world around us and let it change our being. Very cool.”

I’m happy to report that since my blog post Beauteous Butterflies three weeks ago, I have been enchanted by more beauties on various hikes in various habitats and some of them posed long enough to allow me to take a photograph. Even though a number didn’t show the hoped-for spread-wing posture, and a few aren’t completely in focus, I included them nonetheless.

I was particularly tickled with the rolled-up proboscis of the unidentified skipper and with the insect that photobombed the fritillary in the featured photo above.

I’m not a butterfly expert and if I have wrongly identified any, please let me know.

To enlarge a photo, click on it. To read its caption, hover cursor over it.

Skipper
Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice)
Pearl Crescent ? (Phyciodes tharos)
Ruddy Copper ? (Lycaena rubidus)
Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia)
Comma (Polygonia comma)
Weidemeyer’s Admiral (Limenitis Weidmeyerii)
Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa)

60 thoughts on “Can Never Have Too Many Butterflies”

  1. Beautiful. I’m particularly jealous of the Mourning Cloak – over here that species is called the Camberwell Beauty and I’ve been searching for one for over 60 years, but without any success. Do you see them regularly round your way?

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    • Thank you, Mr. P. I’m sorry to hear about your fruitless (or wingless) search for Camberwell Beauties and I hope your 60-plus years of seeking will be rewarded with some sightings.

      This is usually one of the first butterflies out and about in springtime and I see them regularly. The Mourning Cloak in my photo looked very fresh to me, his colours were brilliant and all his scales seemed intact.

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    • Ja, es ist ernüchternd, daß ihre Zahlen so rückläufig sind. Ich erinnere mich regelmäßig daran, daß ich sie beobachten und bewundern soll so lange es noch geht. Auch ich hoffe, daß wir die Verhältnisse so verbessern können, daß sich ihre Zahlen wieder erholen.

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  8. You are right. We can never have enough of these enchanting creatures. These are bright, cheerful photos you’ve captured and I like the collage format you decided on for them. Around here I sometimes see Clouded Sulphurs and the Mourning Cloaks early in the spring.

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    • Thank you, Julie, I’m glad you enjoyed these beauties and the format I chose to present them.

      Mourning Cloaks also seem more common here during the spring, but this particular specimen must have emerged not long before I saw it as it was absolutely pristine.

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  15. Truer words were never written! Love the compilation photos and like you, those rolled (then unrolled!) proboscises are always a thrill to see. (Had to look up the plural form. 🙂 ) Nice post, Tanja!

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  17. It’s interesting to see the great diversity of butterflies found in Colorado. Also, because of your close-up of the butterfly mural, I can now appreciate the chrysalids in the center which I didn’t quite notice at first. It’s an amazing mural!

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    • Thank you, Maria. I read somewhere that Colorado has more than 800 species of moths and butterflies which is an astounding number. I only know a tiny fraction of them and hope to learn to identify more.

      The artist did a marvelous job with the mural, showing so many different and beautiful details.

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  18. Your outstanding photographic series illustrates exactly why artists have been so enthralled with attempting to capture the beauty and grace of butterflies on canvas – and walls!

    We are very fortunate here in central Florida to have some sort of butterfly activity throughout the year. However, once spring and summer arrive, it’s like an explosion of fluttering color wherever we go.

    Thank you, Tanja, for continuing to share the beautiful and interesting things you encounter.

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    • Thank you, Wally, I think your assessment about the popularity of butterflies is spot on.

      You are lucky to live in a state where you aren’t deprived of these beauties during the winter. I don’t know if my quick internet search revealed the truth–that there are more butterfly species in Colorado than Florida. That’s hard to believe.

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  22. I love Miss Mourning Cloak. One of my indigenous ancestors was called ‘Mourning Dawn’. My cousin, in Maine, is an avid entomologist and studied skippers. They are the most evolved of the butterfly and moth family. They are too furry for me…. 😉

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    • I envy your cousin, always would like to know more about these gossamer-winged creatures. I don’t mind the furriness of skippers, would love to pet those soft-looking spots. 🙂
      I bet there there is a family legend surrounding your ancestor Mourning Dawn. It sounds so sad.

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      • There are plenty of stories about Mourning Dawn or possibly Morning Dawn. I doubt the veracity of many of them…

        I am not petting a skipper – eek!!

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  23. Beautiful photography of these lovely creatures, Tanja! Unhappily, there do not seem to be many butterflies around here, probably due to all the rain. The ‘Big Butterfly Count’ is on here at the moment, so I’m hoping for a sunny day when I might see some to count.

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    • Thank you, Ann. It makes me so happy to see butterflies on the flowers we planted for them in the garden (and when we are out and about).
      I hope your weather will improve sufficiently to allow a number of butterfly generations to be born this summer.

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  24. Einer schöner als der andere. Von denen kann man wirklich niemals genug bekommen!
    Letztes war ich in einer Schmetterlingshalle, wo die Falter frei herumflogen. Ich konnte sie sogar dazu bringen, auf meinen Finger zu krabbeln. Riesige wunderschöne Exemplare aus den Tropen. Ich kam mir vor wie Alice im Wunderland! 😍

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    • Danke, liebe Simone. Ich kann gut nachvollziehen, daß Du Dich in der Schmetterlingshalle wie in einem Wunderland fühltest. Mir erging es ähnlich, als ich das mal erlebte. Aber noch schöner ist es, diesen wunderbaren Wesen in freier Flur zu begegnen, und ich bin dankbar, daß das noch möglich ist.

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  25. Your second photo of the mural seems kaleidoscopic to me; it’s very appealing. This spring was filled with more butterflies than I’ve seen in a while, especially various whites and sulphurs. Gulf fritillaries were common, too. I’m eager to get out and about again and see what our summer ‘crop’ looks like. It’s interesting to see how different species seem to appear on different schedules: all beautiful, and delights to the eye.

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    • Kaleidoscopic is a great way to describe this butterfly mural, Linda. One can easily imagine rotating the kaleidoscope and having the shards assume different forms.

      I would like to be able to witness the different stages of metamorphosis more. I suspect they are happening all around me but I have to pay closer attention.

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  26. Lovely images Tanja. I am not up on the Butterfly world, but I can confirm the Mourning Cloak as they like to greet me on my long runs – likely mocking me by showing how effortlessly they can flutter down the trail ha. Not a lot of different Butter species around here, so always fun to see the variety of beauties in other parts of the region.

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  28. Here in Benalmadena, in the south of Spain, we have a butterfly garden, hundreds of species of butterflies. I love going to this place to take photos of these beautiful butterflies.

    Regards!

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