Butterfly-friendly native CA plants purchased from a local conservation group have collected a caterpillar! Looks like a Sphynx moth. Now I just need to finish transplanting the rest of the plants into the actual ground! #nature #plants #butterflies #moths #garden #caterpillar

Black caterpillar with yellow highlights on a plant stem

Butterfly-friendly native CA plants purchased from a local conservation group have collected a caterpillar! Looks like a Sphynx moth.

Now I just need to finish transplanting the rest of the plants into the actual ground!

#nature #plants #butterflies #moths #garden #caterpillar

On PixelFed.Social

Some butterflies spotted the other day while hiking.

Some #butterflies spotted the other day while hiking. A gulf fritillary (orange), some kind of blue, possibly a marine blue (tiny with brown wings and a blue body), and possibly a cloudless sulphur (yellow).

The blues are always hard to spot because they’re so small, and the sulphurs just don’t want to pause most of the time. But the fritillaries are more willing to stop, and there were SO MANY of them at the gardens on Monday.

#nature #photo #butterfly

A yellow butterfly with a few dark spots perched on a small red flower with its wings closed.

A bright orange butterfly with narrow black stripes and a few white spots outlined in black, perched on wide green leaves with its wings open.

A very small butterfly with brown wings and blue body perched on a plant with crinkly green leaves.

On Photog.Social

Maybe a cloudless sulphur? Whatever it is, these yellow ones hardly ever pause long enough for me to take a picture.

Sulphur? on iNaturalist

There were so. many. fritillaries.

Fritillary on iNaturalist (tighter crop)

Blue on iNaturalist (tighter crop)

Some butterflies from an exhibit, including a banded orange, a postman, an two morphos…

Some #butterflies from an exhibit, including a banded orange, a postman, an two morphos (they had SO many morphos)…

one of which decided to land on my leg and stay there. They had made it clear that we were not to touch the butterflies so as not to damage the wings with skin oils, so when it still hadn’t left after a couple of minutes, I asked a staff member to remove it, and they coaxed it away with a sponge brush soaked in gatorade.

#photo #nature

On Photog.Social

A swallowtail butterfly, photographed using the classic technique of desperately following it with the camera…

A #swallowtail #butterfly, photographed using the classic technique of desperately following it with the camera and clicking the shutter when I hope it’s pointing vaguely in the right direction to at least catch it in frame and it probably won’t be in focus anyway but with luck it’ll at least be identifiable and…hey, not bad!

(Otherwise I’ve basically given up trying to actually aim at butterflies when they’re flying.)

#photo

A butterfly with yellow wings outstretched, black along its body and wing edges and stripes , seen backlit against the sky and leafy tree branches.

On Photog.Social

Western Tiger Swallowtail

Common Swallowtails

On iNaturalist

I saw several monarch butterflies at the botanic gardens up in the hills yesterday

I saw several monarch butterflies at the botanic gardens up in the hills yesterday, but no more than about three at a time. Numbers have dropped drastically over the last few years.

#photo #butterfly #MonarchButterfly #nature

Monarch

Monarch

On Photog.Social
On iNaturalist (crop of first photo only)