Thursday, April 2, 2015

I Saw My First Butterfly This Year Today

Painted Lady Butterfly © B. Radisavljevic
It's amazing how almost all my sages are blooming now, but the one that gets the most visits from the widest variety of insects seems to be this black sage plant. The bees always flock around it. At dusk swarms of moths have been flitting from blossom so fast I couldn't see more than the whir of their wings. Today, though, I saw my first butterfly. It was camera shy and fast, but I did catch it in a few poses. This first one is a side view with the wings slightly spread.

Painted Lady Butterfly © B. Radisavljevic


This view shows how skillfully the butterfly can camouflage itself in the blossoms of the black sage. Although it shows a completely different color when its wings are spread and you can see the upper side, it blends right in when it's wings are closed like this.









Painted Lady Butterfly © B. Radisavljevic
I finally was able to capture this butterfly with its wings spread, and that helped me identify it as a Painted Lady. It may be an American Painted Lady. But it's definitely not the Monarch I had thought it was before I looked it up.




What butterflies are you seeing this spring?

2 comments:

  1. Makes me think of the Elton John song, Sweet Painted Lady:). Amazing how well it camouflages itself. Initially I thought it was just getting out of its cocoon. In the Philippines, we believe that if a relative dies, then a butterfly shows up, it's the relative visiting us.

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  2. That camouflage surprised me, too, since with its wings open the butterfly is hard to miss.

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