Life on Salem Road

Red-Spotted Purple Admiral Butterfly on Barn Floor  9/18/2020 We have lots of these Red-Spotted Purple Admiral Butterflies around the place, and most of them seem a bit worse for the wear.  I went searching to find out how butterflies get injured.  I wasn't really successful, but I did learn that you can replace a broken butterfly wing with a similar wing from a dead butterfly.  Who knew?  

  Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Garlic Chives 8/30/2020 Steven and were having coffee on the back porch this morning when I grabbed my phone and sprinted across the yard to get pictures of this lovely butterfly. He was enjoying the garlic chives blooming in the patch of various flowers, herbs, and vegetables that are tucked in alongside the asparagus bed.  I was quite pleased to be able to identify his sex, something I haven't been able to do before as I've been observing the Life on Salem Road.  He is distinguishable from the female because a female would have blue at the bottom of her forewing.  Butterflies at Home has a great article on Eastern Tiger Swallowtail coloration, with photos.  I'm now officially on the lookout for a female "dark morph."  One of the most interesting things about the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is that the female is dimorphic.  That means that the females occur naturally in more than one form.  (Drilling down into dimorp...

Blue Winged Wasp on Tall Thoroughwort  in Chicken Yard 8/19/2020 Now there's a lot to unpack in this picture.  I snapped this in the Chicken Yard when I noticed that the plant -- which I now know is Tall Thoroughwort -- was covered by these amazing-looking wasps as well as a number of bees.  If you look in the upper right of the picture you'll see one of The Ladies -- I believe she is one of our California Whites.  Moving down the picture, you'll see two wasps:  the one on the left may be a Great Black Wasp, but I'm focusing today on the wasp on the right, a Blue Winged Wasp.  And lower in the picture, you'll see an unidentified species of bee.  I knew this plant that I had saved when I mowed and the chickens had allowed to survive in their Yard was a power pollinator and I had to know more about it! When I sat down to write this morning, out came my beautiful hard-back copy of Carl Hunter 's Wildflowers of Arkansas .  (When I put it on my Christm...

Silvery Checkerspot Butterfly  on Rudbeckia 7/25/2020 While watering and weeding yesterday (we are dry!), I noticed this lovely fellow on the Rudbeckia in the garden bed where I was working.  I managed to get several shots really close up, so it's a pretty good image, even with my crappy phone camera. I used the Arkansas Butterflies page on ButterflyIdentification.org to get a lead on the species of butterfly.  The first info they shared about the Silvery Checkerspot is that it loves Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia), so I was certain I had found the right butterfly.  I then verified it against my butterfly field guide ( Butterflies of North America by John Feltwell with illustrations by Brian Hargreaves).  What a lovely name, and I know what to call it now!  No more "little orange and black butterfly!"  Learning about the species that we live with is what this project is all about.  Treating everything with the respect of learning its name and usin...