Getting Back to the Garden

With the warming weather, and the generous recent rain, the garden is getting going, and starting to attract butterflies. The Great Spangled Fritillary has finally shown up, visiting the Butterfly Weed.

We have lots of bumble bees. but as far as I can see no Rusty Patched Bumble Bees.

I finally got a fresh, decent picture of a Spicebush Swallowtail although I've seen a few off and on for a couple weeks. It's a female, from the blue wash on the hind wings.

A female Zabulon Skipper on the Verbena bonariensis. A perennial, it also seeds freely, and forms thick stands readily.

Male and female Zabulons are so different you might mistake them for different species.

Another sexually dimorphic butterfly, this is a white morph of the Clouded Sulphur. Only females come in the white version. Easy to confuse with the white trash of butterflies, the Cabbage White.