Wordless Wednesday: Butterfly

Butterfly

Butterfly

I photographed this butterfly at the Como Zoo butterfly garden this summer. As with most of the butterflies in the display it is an exotic that is not native to Minnesota.

Wordless Wednesday: Paper Kite

Necedah Butterflies

We did find some other butterflies at Necedah NWR also.

Like this sulphur butterfly.
It is difficult to tell the difference between clouded sulphur and the orange sulphur unless they have their wings open, which is rare for sulphurs when they are perched. I believe that these are clouded though.
We also found some pearl crescent butterfly.
Crescents are a part of the Nymphalidae family which are often called the bush-footed butterflies. They are called this because of their front pair of legs are shorter and covered with short hairs. The Mymphalidae family includes longwings, fritillaries, crescents, checkerspots among other types of butterflies. There are also seven other subfamilies that are part of the Nymphalidae family.
The red-spotted purple is a member of the Nymphalidae sub family Limenitidinae.
The red-spotted purple is actually the same species as the white admiral. The white admiral is more of a solid black with a heavy white band on both sets of wings as well as red spots on the hindwing.

Carlos Avery Butterflies

And lest I forget Carlos Avery also had some butterflies for me to photograph that weekend.
Skippers are usually pretty hard for me to identify, especially since I am such a newbie. They are kind of like the sparrows are in the bird world, small, hard to see, and all look a lot a like. I think that this one is a crossline skipper but if you think that I am wrong please feel free to correct me.

The little wood-satyr is typically found in forest clearings or on the edges of woods, which is where I found this one. They fly in a bouncy pattern usually close to the ground, although they will also sometimes fly up into trees and perch on a leaf blade.
The pearl crescent is a very common butterfly, especially in the eastern half of the United States. They can typically be found in open fields as well as in flower gardens and on the sides of roads. One of the reasons that they are so common is the fact that they often have 3 or more broods per year.
The silver-bordered fritillary is common in the northern US and through out much of Canada. They are typically found in boggy areas, marshes or wet meadows.
The white admiral is found through out most of the northern part of North America as well as Europe. Their typical habitat is forest edges or along streams.
Although they look different the white admiral is actually the same species as the red-spotted purple.

Owl Butterfly Como Zoo 6-2008

Julia Butterfly Como Zoo 6-2008

Paper Kite Butterfly Como Zoo 6-2008

Blue butterflies at Crex Meadows

With the butterfly and dragonfly populations finally exploding in June we on the look out for insects as well as birds on our trip to Crex Meadows at the beginning of the month. We were particularly hoping to find and photograph a Karner Melissa blue butterfly.
The Karner blue is listed on the endangered species list because it depends on lupine as the host plant for its larval form, caterpillar. The best place to find karners is in middle of Wisconsin but there is a small population that is know to inhabit Crex.
So as we travelled through the park photographing birds, butterflies and dragonflies we would stop and look for blue butterflies any time that we spotted a good size patch of lupine. We never did find a Karner, it was still pretty early in the summer, but we did find an eastern tailed-blue, which is pictured in the top two photos. The eastern tailed-blue is pretty easy to ID. There are only two blue butterflies with tails in the area, the western-tailed blue, which has only one orange spot on the bottom wing near the tail, and the eastern-tailed blue which typically has more then one orange spot on the lower wing.
We also found a silvery blue, notice no tail and no orange on the under side of the wing. We were pretty excited because this was our first pic of a silvery blue, I have not been photographing butterflies and dragonflies for very long, but I wished that I could have taken a pic with its wings open. The upper side of the wings is a silvery almost metallic blue color. Oh well, maybe the next time that we go out looking for Karnes again I will get a shot of a silvery blue with its wings open.

Blue Morpho Como Zoo

Here is another butterfly from the Como Zoo butterfly exhibit.
This is a blue morpho. I had to be patient and wait a while before I could get a pic of one with its wings open.
It was well worth the wait.

Yellowstone Milbert's Tortoiseshell Butterfly

We did manage to find a couple of butterflies in Yellowstone. We were up at the tower gift shop on Monday, it was pretty warm that day, and we spotted 4 or 5 Milbert's tortoiseshell butterflies fluttering around between the dandelions.
A couple day later most of Yellowstone, including Tower Falls, got a couple of days of snow. I wonder if the butterflies have a way of dealing with the weather fluctuations or if it was their time.

Paper Kite

Paper kite Como Zoo June '08

Home, home in Bowdoin where the birds and the antelope play

Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge has lakes, ponds and potholes but it also has prairie. We saw quite a few creatures living out in the fields surrounding the water.
The western kingbird is named such because its range extends through the western portion of North America. Over the past 100 years the range of the western kingbird has been slowly encroaching on that of its cousin the eastern kingbird, including a wintering population is south Florida.
There were plenty of western meadowlarks everywhere that we went it was nice to hear there song as we were driving along.Western meadowlarks can be found in open country such as fields, pastures and grasslands. They are a ground forager. They can often be seen searching the ground and the dirt for bugs, plants and seeds. This bird found itself what looked to be a plump cricket for lunch.
There were also plenty of insects in the fields including bees of several types, moths, grasshopper, and butterflies, like this sulfur. We were lucky that we did not really have any problems with mosquitoes. Maybe it was still too early in the year or maybe it was the low water level, either way we were grateful for not having to deal with the little pests.
One of the big surprises at Bowdoin was when we came across this pronghorn buck. We had seen a few rodents and other small mammals but we were not expecting to see anything like this while we were out birding. He was resting in the grass but decided to move further away from the road when we stopped the car to take a couple of pics.

Como Zoo Butterflies

I have finally finished going through all of the pictures that we took on our Yellowstone trip. I will finish up with the Bowdoin stuff and then start posting the Yellowstone pics. There are so many pics that I will likely be posting about Yellowstone through the month of June. In the mean time I am still out taking pics, so I plan to post some more current stuff too, when I have it.

Today a new butterfly exhibit opened at the Como Zoo in St Paul. They plan to have as many as 5000 chrysalises shipped in over the summer. This will allow the zoo to release up to about 300 butterflies per week with 300 to 500 flying around the enclosure at any one time. The zoo has a special permit to house the 100, mostly non-native, species in their 2,500 square foot greenhouse. Even though the weather was not perfect I made a quick stop at the zoo over lunch to take a few pics of some of the more interesting and colorful species.

clipper
lacewing
queen
paper kite
small postman
zebra longwing
owl butterfly
emerald swallowtail

Fortunately the zoo is only a few blocks from where I work so I am going to take the opportunity, over the summer, to photograph and feature some of these exotic Lepidoptera, in the blog, as well as some of the native species that I find in my wanderings. In the end we will all hopefully learn more about these fascinating insects.

Eastern Comma First Butterfly of 2008

Last Thursday while I was wondering around the North Mississippi Regional Park looking for the heron rookery I had a pleasant surprise. I started off down the path that runs along the river, like the directions on the MOU list server stated, but I was going the wrong way down the path. I headed north along the river from the interpretive center instead of south. It was not really a bad thing though because sometimes a mistake can turn into blessing in disguise. On this afternoon the sun was warm and it was the first really beautiful day of spring. As I walked I spotted some pied grebe on the river, first of the year, some hooded mergansers, a phoebe, first of the year, and an old brown leaf.
A Brown leaf? Wait a minute that is not a leaf that is actually a eastern comma butterfly and the first butterfly which I have seen in 2008. Don't you just love its camouflage.
Now some of you who live in a warmer climate are probably thinking, "So what" right about now. Well I live in Minnesota, just in case you have not been paying attention, and 3 days before I took these pics we had temps below freezing and blizzard like conditions as we got over 8" of snow. I did not expect to see any butterflies until the end of the month or more likely May but there it was right in front of me. Good thing that I went the wrong way.
The following day, last Friday, I saw my second butterfly of 2008, a mourning cloak, at Wood Lake Nature Center. I followed it for a while but it did not land. Instead it flew up and over the tree line so unfortunately no picture, but spring has just begun so I am sure that I will have more chances. Today the butterfly cage that I ordered came in. It is made of pvc and netting and is about the size of a 38 gallon aquarium. That should give me plenty of room to raise monarchs, black swallowtail and maybe even order some painted lady caterpillars too. My plan is to set up a web cam or two so that I can get pictures of all the different stages since last year they always seemed to hatch from their chrysalis while I had my back turned.

Butterflies and dragonflies at the Bass Ponds

While I was out playing hooky from my conference and birding at the Bass Ponds of the Minnesota Valley NWR I took advantage of what may be the last chance this year that I may have to photograph insects in Minnesota. With it all ready being mid October there are less butterflies and dragonflies around, because the temperatures have dropped, and soon we will begin to get hard frost which will pretty much eliminate the remaining populations. However this Saturday was a beautiful day and I had some pretty good luck with the bugs. The first thing that I came across was a pair of orange sulfurs.
I believe that there was a male and female, the male is the one with more black around the edges of the wings
They were playing tag through the fields on the side of the path. One would land and I would set up a shot and while I was shooting the other one would often come flying into frame.
Finally they both landed on the same flower and shared a drink.

I also spotted several autumn meadowhawks.
Autumn meadowhawks are easy to ID because they have yellow legs instead of black legs like most meadowhawks.
I also found an eastern tailed blue who was quite photogenic.

The eastern tailed blue is named for the two small hairs (tails) at the bottom of the hind wings.
I also found this moth flying around amongst the flowers. My butterfly field guide does not list moths and after checking around a bit on the Internet I am still not sure what it is. If anyone knows what type of moths that this is I would appreciate it if you could leave a message in the comments.