Butterflies in the Gardens of Flower Hill Farm 2014

The butterfly season of twenty-fourteen was great but a bit down from the previous years. I did sight a few new species and added them to my list. I hope you can visit my main blog to see some of the families of  butterflies that visited our gardens last year. Cheers to a great butterfly season for 2015!

Bronze Copper 

Whites Continuing to Shimmer Throughout A Sweltering July

Bid farewell to July with a stroll through the gardens still shimmering in white . . . more mature blooms . . . some nearly fading . . . the buzz, broods, trills and furls relaxing into August along the fringe of summer. July passed with days of torrid, sultry heat. Amazingly I withstood it all and each day went about the gardens and fields, during the hottest hours, in search of butterflies, discovering new species to add to my list.

As the Bluebird couple's second brood continues to grow within the nestbox, hydrangeas swell into soft, full panicles attracting bees and butterflies alike. In the background the flowers of Japanese Tree Lilac are fading. Yucca filamentosa L. is beginning to ring its waxy bells with the other shimmering whites.

Gooseneck loosestrife Lysimachia clethroides, in the middle garden is a favorite white of many butterflies.

Aphrodite Fritillary . . .  a frequent visitor to the white patch of tapered starry panicles. 

Very unusual here to see a Little Wood Satyr sipping nectar in the gardens. They are mostly sighted skipping around low to the ground. 

Numerous sorts of Skippers are seen flying and nectaring within the gooseneck raceme. In the eight by ten feet, or so, swath of flowers, just in front of the Bluebird nestbox, there might be up to 40 or 50 tiny butterflies darting about. Comical interplay abounds.

Here a Pearl Crescent, also in some numbers, approaches a content Skipper . . . a chase follows. Butterflies can be very territorial or could this little butterfly be thinking the Skipper is one of her/his own.

Days become weeks with the stifling heat blowing open silky petals of snowy white. 

The Hydrangea paniculata 'Swan' graces the middle garden just behind the nestbox.

Large heavy snowballs fall within this old fashion favorite. 

A Cimicifuga 'Candelabra' catches the light in the upper garden.

Earlier July

End of July

'The Swan'

Among the globulous buds of Cimcifuga, a Summer Azure comes in for a landing.

Birds are going for the Viburnum berries which are spilling over into the white pom-pom-like blossoms of Hydrangea.

Tree Hydrangea inflorescence begins with a chartreuse hue. 

Looking down towards the lower garden another Hydrangea paniculata is still offering a show . . . now in full white display. 

A Greater Spangled Fritillary harvesting Hydrangea nectar.

Milkweed's bouncy, bountiful and beautifully fragrant orbs have come and gone with not one sighting of a Monarch butterfly.

A Common Whitetail dragonfly rests on the birdbath. 

Meadowsweet offers tall, white, flame-like plumes up nearer the farmhouse and studios. 

My first ever Baltimore Checkerspot! Gorgeous crescent moons and other patterns on its wings. After a champagne lunch, my dear friend and bubbly cohort, Eva, and I took a walk about the gardens and there it was, a good twenty feet away from us, just resting in an overgrown section of the north field! I will be writing about this butterfly and other unusual guests in a later piece.

For now, Happy August! The days cannot get any hotter (I hope!) but the garden colors can.

Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ Skippers

Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 continues on this Earth Day, celebrating the butterflies that were sighted on our farm mostly over the past year. This installment features the teeny and erratic Skippers of the Hesperiidae family.

Skippers may not be the showiest of butterflies and this makes them all the more challenging to identify. Here is a terrific video site which reveals live in the field skippers that is great for learning how to identify these little butterflies.

I have tried with the help of others to identify the Skippers below but there may still be some mistakes. With many Skippers a guess is about as good as it gets, especially when the photographs do not show enough detail.

A Crossline Skipper Polites origenes, contently sipping from an Echinacea in the middle meadow garden last July. These tiny skippers fly for only one flight period beginning the end of June through early August. Females lay eggs on a variety of grasses found mostly in dry fields or other open habitats where the caterpillars will weave together two blades of grass for privacy while feeding.

The Crossline Skipper overwinters as third or fourth instars. 

I am not certain about the little butterfly sipping on milkweed florets in the photograph above. 

The Skipper above might be a Crossline Skipper or may well be a Dun Skipper.

A Dun Skipper Euphyes vestris, feeding last July in the middle meadow garden. These skippers are fairly common and might be seen in numbers of one hundred or more from late June through to the middle of September, though more often seen from the beginning of July till the end of August. The larva feed mostly on sedges. The delicate eggs are fastened one at a time to the leaves of the host plant where the young caterpillar will roll the leaves to feed. Dun Skippers overwinter as a third instar larva.

A Silver-spotted Skipper Epargyreus clarus, beneath the graceful curve of a not so gracefully behaved gooseneck loosestrife in our middle meadow garden last July. This skipper is commonly sighted in large numbers throughout the state of Massachusetts and has the coolest caterpillar form of a bright yellow with a red collar below its dark brownish head. Very striking and I wonder what the birds make of it. The caterpillars will fold over a leaf corner to feed and when older they fasten together two leaves with their silk threads creating a nest to hide within during pupation.

The Silver-spotted Skipper is larger than most other skippers and flies about gardens and meadows from May through October but more often the beginning of June to the middle of August. In Massachusetts they may only have one flight period. The females seek out various leaves of legumes such as Honey or Black Locust, False Indigo and some clovers to fasten a single egg to. I will carefully search the locust saplings I cut from the fields this year to see if I can find some Silver-spotted Skipper eggs of this butterfly. They overwinter as a pupa.

 I wish this was a native bloom! Yet another thug growing here at Flower Hill Farm. Lysimachia clethroides is native to China and Japan. We have it growing here between two mowed paths. I find it easy to keep in check but know that it can become very invasive. 

A mystery Skipper in the south field last July.

In an earlier post of Butterflies of 2011 I had not been able to identify the Skipper above. Hopefully I have it right this time. I would not be able to name any of these little Skippers without the help of the great website and generous folks in the Massachusetts Butterfly Club. Many thanks go out to Joe for letting me know Indian Skipper Hesperia sassacus, is the right name for this butterfly who was sunning on a milkweed leaf near a swarm of honey bees back in late May of 2009.

These butterflies fly about only from the end of May through the end of June when females deposit varying shades of green to white eggs on various grasses.

The fabulous Butterflies of Massachusetts site lists a number of grasses used by the larva. I will have to be sure to cultivate these in an undisturbed area near the forest edge here in future for these butterflies may be on the decline. I do not understand why it does not continue to fly and mate throughout the summer months. The Indian Skipper overwinters here in either larva or pupa forms.

I am so deeply thankful to our mother Earth for all of the diverse creatures that enrich my life daily. Butterflies are especially magical to me and through their amazing metamorphosis inspire a deeper appreciation for all life and the countless changes that abound within it.

Monarchs are up next on Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012!

Flower Hill Farm BUTTERFLIES OF 2011 ~ Favorite Skippers

Skippers are feisty little butterflies of the Skippers Hesperiidae Family. 

Flower Hill Farm has residents from both the Subfamily: Grass Skippers and Spread-wing Skippers. 

I truly cannot be certain of these tiny creatures but guess this one to be a Black Dash. I am hoping for help from others and then will add the facts about this tiny adorable Skipper later.

Peck's Skipper Polites peckius, may be sighted in the hundreds during one of their flight periods. They  are most likely to be eyed in late May and the first brood flies about till the end of July. Then the second brood will take wing from the beginning of August flying into September. Females attach one pale green egg at a time to a stem of one of their host grasses. Peck's Skippers overwinter in both caterpillar and chrysalis forms.

Zabulon Skipper Poanes zabulon  Or   Hobomok Skipper Poanes hobomok  ??

The Silver-spotted Skipper Epargyreus clarus, of the subfamily Spread-wing Skipper, is a very common resident of Massachusetts and it is our most sizable skipper. Normally there is only one brood dashing and skipping about during June through the middle of August. Females fasten green ribbed eggs to leaves of the legume family or more precisely, on a plant near the host plant. Here at Flower Hill Farm I imagine them to favor the Honey Locust along the north field. They overwinter in the chrysalis stage. 

It looks as though there might be a tiny Tawny-edged Skipper Polites themistocles hanging out with these Silver-spotted Skippers. Just a guess from eyeing the bit of red on the wings.

I have read and witnessed the Silver-spotted Skippers dashing about really fast and happily I can say the same thing for spring. 

Warmer days have nearly melted all the snow on our hillside. 

Last evening we joyfully listened to the first woodcocks of the season!! There were three out in the fields and I chanced to see one flying too! Their magical mating dance and wing song is a sure sign of spring!

Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom under the changing skies. 

The landscape is rapidly melting from this . . . 

 to this.  Wild Turkeys are happy too! 

Look out little caterpillars and chrysalises!!

Another friday begins and already mid March . . . I hope you can click over to Katarina's 'Roses and Stuff' to see 'signs of Spring' from Sweden and around the globe.