A Day at the Butterfly Farm
My friend Dale Clark owns a butterfly farm called Butterflies Unlimited. Once a year, he has an open house during the monarch migration, and this year I signed up to volunteer and help answer visitor questions about plants and butterflies.
This is one I didn’t know - and honestly, I had to look for a bit to feel convinced it was a moth - but this is a Yellow Collared Scape Moth.
Common Buckeye on Gregg’s Mistflower. These blue flowers are butterfly magnets when they bloom in the fall.
In addition to the outdoor butterflies, Dale has a large flight house; this is a Zebra Longwing in the flight cage, resting on some Eupatorium odoratum (fragrant mistflower).
I didn’t know that queen butterflies migrate like monarchs. They don’t go to a centralized location, but they travel annual from north to south in the fall. Again, on Eupatorium odoratum (fragrant mistflower).
I think this queen butterfly may be signalling for a mate?
Originally published at WormSpit. You can comment here or there.