butterfly bands | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Face to face with that large black spot, it bordered by that orange-juice Julius ring, and I smiled, for this was a fresh Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak butterfly. Atlanta flight to San Jose, Texas, next that 4 hour-drive to our accommodation in Alamo, Texas.

The next days were filled with butterflies not seen in the New York City metropolitan area, or in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or west of Phoenix, or Israel, or the Mississippi Delta or Toronto or Savannah or the Georgia Piedmont.

Found along the southeast corridor from California to Texas, I love the colors: gray, black, white, orange served up with bands, chevrons, arrow-heads, etc.

Seen at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas near the border wall.

A Clint Eastwood Butterfly, as in Make My Day.

Jeff

It’s as though the paintbrush has not yet dried. This seeming work of a brilliant contemporary painter is on the Junonia coenia, the Buckeye. He’s briefly resting in the Outdoors Gardens of the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, steps away from some of America’s finest museums and universities. Bands, bars and eyespots whose colors have been meticulously chosen. You see that when a fresh Buckeye flies in, a smile crosses my face.

This is the one and only look that we get when we meet Junonia c.. This is usually the best view that we’re able to get. Though when Buckeyes are nectaring, it’s often easier to move closer. Buckeyes, like Monarchs and Ladies, migrate north in the Spring and fly south in the Fall. I’ve never seen what are described as mass migrations? Have you?

Florida enjoys 2 other species of Buckeyes, the Tropical Buckeye and the Mangrove Buckeye. Those are treats that I have not yet photographed. So much to be done, so much to be done.

Jeffrey