Blue Morning, Orange Afternoon

We had a ton of rain yesterday with very gusty winds, so this morning, I was totally thrilled to not only see a clear blue sky, but a beautiful Spring Azure playfully flitting around and about my feet!

Later, while planting bushes, a small, fast flying orange and black butterfly whizzed past me. Was it an American Painted Lady or one of the overwintering anglewings like a Question Mark or Comma? After seven months without a butterfly sighting, it's easy to forget the different species flight patterns which help identify them while they're fluttering about!

Earlier, I had checked our Pearly Everlasting, host plants for the American Painted Lady, for eggs after noticing one of our neighbor's low growing patch of plants blooming. Sometimes, eggs and larvae are easier to spot than an adult butterfly flying around!

Shortly before dinner, a Cabbage White descended upon our "field" of dandelions in search for the perfect golden flower to nectar and refuel at. Very soon, lilacs will be blooming, beaconing other butterflies like the Red Admiral, Eastern Black Swallowtails, and Tiger Swallowtails.

It's hard to believe we were having snow flurries six days ago!!! Spring is finally here!!! --LKR

While out in the Woods...

While out in the woods, yesterday, an orange blur caught my eye. It flew purposefully and more parallel, so I knew it wasn't a leaf! It landed not too far away, and with the aid of the 12x zoom on my super fun Canon S3 IS camera, I was able to identify it as a Comma butterfly.

Commas are very similar in appearance to Question Mark butterflies, but Commas have a more "chiseled" look to the edges of their wings. Both are so named for the silvery markings on their outer hind wings.

My author friend and former neighbor, Allie Pleiter, gleefully dubbed them the "Punctuation Butterflies", but they are better known as anglewings. Overwintering in the adult (butterfly) stage, they can sometimes be seen flying or sunning themselves on those warmer, sunnier days.

Rotting fruit and tree sap are favorite foods, but they also will nectar at flowers.

A Mourning Cloak also graced us with its presence, but it flew too quickly and was gone before I could snap a picture of it. Commas, Question Marks, and Mourning Cloaks are all in the Brush-Footed (Nymphalidae) family. --LKR