Please join us for a free live premiere of Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly at the Shalin Liu on Thursday, September 23rd, at 7pm. I hope to see you there!
Masks are required to be worn at all times while in the hall. For more information go here. Presented by the Boston Film Festival and Rockport Music.
Fresh drops of spritely lemon flitting from flower to flower, the Clouded Sulphur is another beauty often seen drinking nectar alongside Monarch’s during the M’s epic migration southward.
At this time of year, late summer/early autumn butterflies find nectar at native asters, goldenrods, and non-native Black Mustard, along with a variety of garden flowers that have an extended blooming period. Clouded Sulphurs have a special fondness for Zinnia elegans, the straight species, not the over-hybridized, overly ruffled variety, where they may have difficulty finding nectar in the obscured center of the flower.
Clouded Sulphur caterpillars eat Alfalfa (Medicago sativa), White Clover (Trifolium repens),sweet clovers (Melilotus spp.) and vetches (Viceia, spp.).
Please join us for a free live premiere of Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly at the Shalin Liu on Thursday, September 23rd, at 7pm. I hope to see you there! Masks are required to be worn at all times while in the hall. For more information go here. Presented by the Boston Film Festival and Rockport Music.
A gallery of some of the butterflies most commonly seen during the Monarch’s southward migration.
Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) – wingspan 1.6 inches -2.9 inches
American Painted Lady (Vanessa virginiensis) – wingspan 1.75 – 2.40 inches
Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) – wingspan 2.75 – 3 inches
Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) – wingspan 1.5 to 2.75 inches
Monarch (Danaus plexippus) – wingspan 3 to 4 inches
Small White /Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) – wingspan 1.3 – 1.9 inches
Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) – wingspan 1.25 – 2 inches
Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme) -wingspan 1.3 – 2.3
Eastern Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) – wingspan 3 – 4 inches
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) – wingspan 3.1 to 5.5 inches
American Copper (Lycaena phleas) – wingspan .75 to 1.5 inches
Silver-bordered Fritillary (Bolaria selene) – wingspan 1.25 – 2.25 inches
Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) – wingspan 1 – 1.5 inches
Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) – wingspan 2.25 – 4 inches
Beauty on the Wing Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly premiering locally on September 23rd at the Shalin Liu. For more information, please go here.
Please consider making a tax deductible donation (or becoming an underwriter) to bring our Monarch Butterfly documentary Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly to American Public Television. To Learn More go here and here: Over the Moon
To DONATE go here.
Thank you!
Later in the day the light is so beautiful in gardens. It’s not necessarily the best time of day for capturing winged wonders in flight, but the gossamer wings of white and yellow butterflies, the family Pieridae, look especially silky and diaphanous in the oblique light of late afternoon.
Clouded Sulphur and Zinnia elegant
Cabbage Whites are the earliest butterfly to appear in spring and one of the last sighted in fall. They are easy to ID, although some female Clouded Sulphurs and Orange Sulphurs have a white form and the Checkered Whites are very similar, yet less common around these parts.
Cabbage White
We see far more Clouded Sulphurs than Orange and Cloudless Sulphurs on Cape Ann. Cloudeds have a lovely pinked border and silver spot on the the ventral side of their hindwings. You can tell the male from the female because when the wings are open, the male has a black border on its wing margins (as you can see in the photo below); the female’s black border is spotted with yellow and not as pronounced.
Clouded Sulphur caterpillars eat clover, alfalfa, and legumes. The photo is possibly a caterpillar of the Pieridae family, or it could be a Skipper caterpillar.
Look for these delicate beauties in your garden, fields, meadows, and marshes. They too are on the wing, along with Monarchs, Common Buckeyes and the Ladies, both Painted and American.
