Two More Butterflies and a Moth

Sorry these images aren't perfectly clear, but they're the best of dozens, even though I thought I was doing well at the time.  But they are all totally new to me.  I've never been aware of seeing a hairstreak butterfly of any kind, so seeing two different ones was great. The moth itself was tiny, perhaps 2 cm across, but beautiful up close.

 

The moth, totally white, and only about half the size of a cabbage white butterfly, is a Northern Eudeilinia Moth based on what I could find, with a fine white fringe along the outer edges of its wings.

This first butterfly is a striped hairstreak.  The hairstreaks all have the remarkable coloured area and most have tiny 'tails' on the back end of their wings.  This one is noted for the blue spot capped by an orange spot, and the wide darker brown bands bordered in white on the rest of the wings.

And this one is the only hairstreak without one of the tiny 'tails', the coral hairstreak, noted for the curved line of orange spots as well.  This makes 3 moth and 9 butterfly species so far this season, though not all got captured in a decent photo!  Remarkably, these two butterflies are taken while feeding on the valerian, just as all five species shown in Saturday's post were!  Good plant for butterflies!

Butterflies Galore!

The past few days the meadow has just been overflowing with tiny butterflies, especially little orange-brown skippers.  They rise in clouds when I walk, especially around the patches of trefoil, vetch and (in the garden) valerian.  I can't get over how many there are, probably thousands on our 2 acres alone.

This is the usual view of the skipper, its wings folded, light reddish brown, only about a cm in size, fluttering from flower to flower, often with 3 or 4 on one plant.

Occasionally you catch a closer look, and realize that sometimes they hold their two wings at separate angles.  I honestly don't know which skipper it is.  Checking the online guides I could make it a delaware skipper or a least skipper, but I suspect it's just a European skipper, which to quote one site 'has become unbelievably abundant' throughout eastern Canada and the U.S., especially in grassy habitats.  That describes our meadow.

There are almost as many Northern Crescents, a slightly bigger butterfly that also loves the valerian in the garden.  I often see three or four at once hovering around a single patch of flowers.  The wing pattern on these is quite distinctive.

I also spotted one Painted Lady, though this one looked like a rather tired, faded and tattered specimen.  In all of these trying to get a clear photo has been almost impossible.  I have taken dozens of each, only to get one or two that are passingly clear.

This heavily cropped image is of a moth I've never seen before, an Eight-spotted Forester, with a very distinctive black and white pattern, with some yellow on the forelegs.

And finally this is a Virginia Ctenuchid Moth, with a very distinctive yellow-orange head, and a blue patch behind this.  both of these moth species fly during the day.  The latter was fluttering around the valerian with the Skippers and Northern Crescents.

I just realized that by coincidence all five of these photos were taken on the valerian flowers in our garden.  Valerian in your garden turns out to be great for attracting butterflies and moths, as well as being very fragrant.

Hummingbird Moth

Ok now, all you expert macro photographers out there, don't laugh at these.  Having bought a macro lens, I've started to try and capture some images of insects like bugs, moths, butterflies, and such.  Keep in mind, these are just handheld while the beast in question is fluttering by and rarely stopping for more than a millisecond.  I have a lot to learn!

 

Never-the-less, I'm pleased with these.  The humming bird moth above was dashing around with his wings a blur from blossom to blossom on our lilac bushes (which have finally bloomed profusely after 10 years of waiting). Watching it, you'd just think it was a miniature humming bird, but as an insect buzzing past your head it seems pretty big.

These small butterflies are fluttering around here, there and everywhere these days.  This one actually landed on the driveway and sat still long enough for me to get a picture.  If I read my 'Photo Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Ontario' correctly, it's a Northern Crescent, one of the small size butterflies, but this one is bright coloured.

This photo actually looks at the underside of this butterfly, a very tiny one, at least I assume it's a butterfly.  I've seen several flitting in the grass the past few days.  But I can't match it up to any pictures in my little  guide.  Hopefully I'll get a better picture of the upper surface, and perhaps buy a better field guide, to identify it.  In the meantime, I'll keep practicing trying to capture pictures of insects, and then learning what they are!