A Really Great Butterfly Day....

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donald adams

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Sep 21, 2016, 9:03:43 PM9/21/16
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today here at ‘Adams Farm’ in W. Bridgewater.

 

Madeline Champagne stopped by here today for a brief visit, and we both motivated ourselves to walk the entire perimeter path I keep mowed around my 1.5 acre ‘butterfly pasture’. The west side of this is a corridor through high-as-me Goldenrod and New England asters all in flower and loaded with Honey Bees. Butterflies started out with a Viceroy, Clouded Sulphur, American Lady, Orange Sulphur, and Pearl Crescent. On the east side there was another Viceroy and it was clearly a female in egg-laying mode, so some searching turned up a half dozen eggs and two hibernacula one of which is shown.

 

The biggest surprise however was at the south side where we saw a very large black butterfly in our 35 ft row of Zinnias at one end of the vegetable garden. By now, Cheryl had joined us and we all approached the Zinnias to id. At first we guessed Spicebush Swt which have been common there all summer, then Red Spotted Purple, then I saw the unusual blue brilliance on the hind wings that made me exclaim “Pipevine Swt”!! Embarrassed that I had violated my own rule never to go into the pasture without camera, I had to run back to the house to get it while Madeline and Cheryl kept watch over the butterfly. This time I had a good dose of ‘fisherman’s luck’ and it was still there when I got back to the garden! For the next hour I clicked pics: the butterfly never stopped once to sit for a good pic but visited flower after flower on-the-fly so all I could do was click away and hope one would be good enough to support what I would have otherwise consider a very unlikely id. After no fewer than 73 pics, I felt I had a good one or two, and reviewing at the PC actually got me  6 or 7 fairly good ones with two of these attached. A Pipevine Swt here at ‘Adams Farm’ is a ‘lifer’ for me, so thanks to the butterfly, and the Zinnias.

 

Don Adams

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