Fritillary Euthanasia

Injured Gulf Fritillary on Pentas

Injured Gulf Fritillary

Proboscis partially uncurled

  The silver flash from the folded wings of the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) is usually a welcome sight, but there was something odd about this one clinging to my Pentas.  His behavior was wrong: he lingered too long and he didn’t startle as I passed.  The next morning, I found him on the same plant, dangling precariously from the magenta blossoms.  This did not bode well.  Was he dead?  Was he too cold to be active yet?  At the same moment, another Gulf Fritillary hurried through the garden, spreading his pumpkin-orange wings as he paused to sip from the cosmos.

Buckeye, Sulphur and Tawny Emperor

I have several pretty visitors to show you.

 

This is the Common Buckeye.  When I spot these, they are often on the ground or pavement, basking in the sun. This one was nectaring on yellow lantana when I photographed him.  Since I just planted some snapdragons, I was pleased to learn that snapdragons are one of their larval foods! 

 

 Yellow Butterflies! There are many different Sulphur butterflies in Galveston County.  Usually they are flying so quickly through my yard that I can only say with certainly, "It's a Sulphur."  This fellow basking on the Juniper was still long enough for a portrait. Some Sulphurs lay eggs on my Senna / Cassia tree.

 

This was a surprise sighting for me!  I looked up one morning (probably scanning for hawks) and saw a brown butterfly way up on the gutter.  This is a hackberry butterfly called a Tawny Emperor.  I do not have a hackberry tree in my yard, but I watched her sip condensation from the gutter, as she warmed in the sun.

Funereal Duskywing

This butterfly, nectaring from cosmos in my August garden, could be in formal attire or dressed in mourning colors with a white petticoat showing under the black dress.  It's the descriptively named  Funereal Duskywing with sooty wings and white fringe along the edges of the hindwing.  This lovely Funereal Duskywing , Erynnis funeralis,  is just one example of the skipper butterflies.  Taxonomists do not consider skippers to be “true” butterflies because they differ in so many ways.  For example, skippers look a little like moths with their stocky, feathery bodies and big, cute eyes.   The tip of a skipper’s  antennae has a curved, pointy club. To me it looks like a sickle or a pointed hockey stick.  True butterflies’ antennae do not curve back.   As this Duskywing demonstrates, skippers are usually cloaked in subdued shades of charcoal, chocolate, amber, copper, or bronze.   Larval host plants for the Funereal Duskywing include alfalfa,  indigo, vetch, and rattlebush.  Remember, if you want butterflies, you have to provide food for the babies and nectar for the adults.

Blue Dragonfly

The previous "Obelisking Dragonfly" I dubbed a Blue Dasher even  though he/she was brown and yellow. Some of you wondered about that.  With this posting you can see the namesake!  The male Blue Dasher is a beauty, the color of a clear sky.  Some dragonflies spend most of their time flying, while others perch.  Dashers are perchers.  This smart fellow spends his days poised on a branch of my native salvia where the blue blossoms afford him some camouflage.  The little Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennes, like other dragonflies, will eat what it can catch.  I have seen these guys swoop repeatedly through a cloud of gnats - like sharks through a school of little fish.

Dragonfly Obelisking

Blue Dasher Dragonfly, Perching

Blue Dasher OBELISKING

Dragonfly  Obelisking

As erect as he can be!

It's August. It's Texas. It's hot. What's an ectotherm to do?  The sun heats your body too much.  You could hide in the shade, but then you couldn't hunt and eat.  Solution:  reduce your body's exposure to the sun by changing your profile!  That is what this dragonfly is doing.;  In the first photo he is close to his usual horizontal perching position.  As the day heats up, he points his tail to the sky!  It is called obelisking because he looks like a tall pillar or obelisk.  I have identified this acrobatic guy as a Blue Dasher - an immature male or a female -  but if you are a Dragonfly-ologist and know otherwise, please correct me.  I want to learn!!!

Dick Benoit Prairie Preserve, League City, TX

Purple Pleat-leaf,  Eustylis purpurea

White Gaura,  Gaura lindheimeri

Kansas Gayfeather, Liatris pysnostachya

White-topped Sedge, Rhynchospora colorata, blooming in a wet ditch.

Bee on Prairie Plantain, Cacalia plantaginea

 Tall white Prairie Plantain and purple spires of Gayfeather

It may be nearly 100 degrees F today.  Whew - too hot for me.   But this precious fragment of coastal prairie is glowing with summer color and humming with bees.

Green Lynx Spider

Peucetia viridians, Green Lynx Spider

Green Lynx Spider Resting on Cosmos

Young Green Lynx on Fennel Blossoms

I have been watching this lovely spider.  He had claimed one particular cosmos blossom and could be found there daily.  When the bloom began to drop petals, he still was loyal.  When the flower switched from nectar-producing to seed-producing, the spider moved to a neighboring, fresh cosmos.  His position must have nectar to lure prey, after all.  During the day, his colors help hide him from birds.  At night, the Green Lynx  assumes a more expectant posture:  I see the Lynx hang forward off the edge of the petals, his front two legs raised and extended, ready to pounce and seize.  One bit of silk might be secured as a drag line.  There is no web. The Green Lynx is a hunter.

Hooker's Eryngo

A starry ground:  Hooker's Eryngo, Eryngium hookeri

Bumble Bee gathering nectar

Honey Bee sipping nectar

Have you ever seen something for the first time and found it so beautiful or unusual that you felt dazzled?  That was my experience with this stunning native flower.   Its color ranges from green to shades of purple and silver.  As you can see, it is a wonderful nectar source for the pollinators.  It looks sharp and prickily  and it is!  Those points will go right though blue jeans.  I imagine that is how the Eryngo protects itself from being chomped by grazing animals.  We can grow this summer annual from seeds in our Texas gardens.

Clapper Rail

When I stopped on the prairie to photograph sulphur butterflies puddling on a cow patty, somebody else caught my eye.  At first I thought it was one of our juvenile Attwater's Prairie Chickens!  But one glance at the long beak corrected that idea.  It was a large brown bird slowly stalking through the grass near a culvert and drainage ditch.  This was a spot where there was usually standing water, but now the ground was hard, dry and cracked because of our scorching, dry weather.  He took cover in a thicket of short Rattlebox trees to preen briefly, then strutted back into the culvert beneath the gravel road.  The Preserve Manager identified him for me - a Clapper Rail.

Little Sulphurs

There have been clouds of these small, flitty sulphur butterflies on the prairie.  During our dry spell, the dainty insects gathered to sip moisture in the only place it could be found - in fresh cow manure.