the butterflies

I had a little better luck trying to get pictures of the butterflies later in the day on Tuesday and I saw two more that I hadn't seen in the morning, a crescent which is familiar to me and a julia which I have never seen before.

It was so delightful to stand there while all these butterflies fluttered around me. Some of them looked brand new and some were so tattered I'm surprised they could still fly. I saw several more of the pipevine swallowtail, all tattered like the one this morning.

Here are the pictures I managed to get:

julia (a member of the brush foot family and ranges from Brazil to Texas and Florida)

gulf fritillary

white striped long tail

painted lady (not a very good picture but the only one I was able to get)

white striped long tail and gulf fritillary

pipevine swallowtail

cloudless sulfur

monarch (same picture as last post)

gray hairstreak (this pic is from a different year)

butterflies weren't the only things all over the cosmos.

Here are pictures of the ones I couldn't get a photo of (all lifted off the internet):

buckeye

snout

queen

crescent (this is a Texan crescent which I see frequently but I'm not sure which one I saw the other day)

black swallowtail (again I'm not sure which one I saw but these are common around here)

skipper

If the queen was indeed a queen and not a fritillary then that's 14 different types of butterflies.

Skippers, hairstreaks, crescents, snouts, and long tails are small; painted ladies, buckeyes, and sulfurs are medium on the small side; fritillaries, queens, and pipevines medium; julias, monarchs, and swallowtails being the biggest.

The next day, Wednesday, there were just a hand full of fritillaries and a pipevine swallowtail. Thursday I was gone and Thursday evening clouds started moving in and today is overcast with the threat (promise?) of rain. No butterflies evident today. I guess the migration blew in on the cold front, tanked up, and continued their journey south.

The promised rain is here and really coming down!