September 18, 2022: Butterfly Questions

Last week I saw monarch butterflies in the fields, and this week I saw a different bright orange and black butterfly right at the house.  

Another bright orange butterfly.

In addition to the monarch I recognize a couple of other butterflies with primarily orange colors including the painted lady and the fritillary, but this one was none of those.  What really caught my eye was the way it folded its wings flat and straight up in the air, and the fact that when resting like this it looked completely different.

Looking like a dead leaf.  Note the partly unfurled proboscis.

I thought it looked so much like a dead leaf that if it were in the woods it would be perfectly camouflaged and invisible to predators.  It sat on a piece of clothing that was left on the railing and uncurled its proboscis to probe the cloth.

That curly white mark on its wing is significant.

I have no idea what it thought it might find there.  

The combination of bright coloring on one side of its wings and drab brown on the other side made it easy to narrow down its identity to just a couple of species of brushfoot family butterflies.  But there are two that are quite similar with one clear identifying feature:  The white curly line with a dot beside it on the outside of its wings that someone thought looked like a question mark.  Thus the common name for this butterfly:  "Question Mark"  The very similar "comma" butterfly lacks the dot, thus its common name is ",".

There were a few other insects to be enjoyed this week.  One, small and pretty, is this  Snowy Tree Cricket:

Snowy Tree Cricket

I don't know that I'd ever seen this insect before and I wouldn't have guessed it to be a cricket - I didn't even know there were any other crickets beyond the usual black Field Crickets that serenade us on warm summer evenings.  Now that I've listened to the call of the tree cricket (which is much more musical than the sharp chirp of the field cricket) I realize I heard them all the time but didn't know what they were.  You can listen to it here, and the video also shows the action of their wings which they rub together to make the sound.  And you can blame the summer racket on the guys - only the males can "sing", and naturally, they do this to attract the gals.

One last insect to share might be less exciting for some to see:

Dock Spider.

I'll bet this is the same spider I saw a few weeks (August 28, 2022), the one I saw jump off a rock onto the water and right back up again.  It looks like she's had no problem finding plenty to eat.  I'm assuming its a female because it's so big.

One big momma.

Males are about half the size of females.  But enough creepy crawlers.  Let's end with a peaceful moment brought to you by Maddie and her mom.

Nap time on Lake Wicwas

I think our northern loon pair has left the lake as Maddie and her parents are now fishing throughout their section of the northern end of the lake.  Maddie will be here for another month or two though her parents may leave weeks before she does.  Change is coming.