It was a good butterfly day in my gardens today. Here are a few pics to share.


Monarch


Eastern Tiger Swallowtail?










Had to share my newest "Garden Decoration"



Pam NJ 6B

Great pics Pam! Glad to see others finally posting their pics. It's not too much fun when I was the only one for awhile!
Wow! That's some garden decoration! Congrats on header of the day!!!

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

SUSAN,

There haven't been many pics to post. Now that the weather is finally getting over 80 degrees, hopefully things will be "warming" up! I see you have been having an awesome butterfly season. Do you know what the 3rd and 4th butterflies are?

Pam NJ 6B

Pam,

In order they are:

Monarch, Tiger Swallowtail, Cabbage White, A Skipper (there are hundreds of them), and a Clearwing Hummingbird Moth.
It's so much easier to ID many skippers with their wings closed. your pic shows them opened. you will notice at this link I'm attaching...(which came from the link on the Butterfly Forum below the header pic (your pic). all I did was put "skipper" into the search and the list came up. If you had a pic of the same skipper with it's wings closed, you can go through the list and match the wings up with your pic. That's how I ID mine if it's not in any of my reference books. I tried to ID it for you.
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/search?searchbox=skipper

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Thanks Susan. I read up on the "white". Here's a good reason NOT to weed the gardens!

Quote:
"Caterpillar hosts: Many plants in the mustard (Brassicaceae) family and occasionally some in the caper family (Capparidaceae).

Adult food: Flower nectar from a very wide array of plants including mustards, dandelion, red clover, asters, and mints. "

Now the gardens got outta hand, so I did some weeding yesterday.....now I feel guilty. Who knows what I threw into the mulch pile????

Pam NJ 6B