A World Without Butterflies

Gulf Fritillary

We get a lot of pleasure watching the butterflies in our garden, hopefully enjoying the various butterfly-friendly plants we've included in the garden.

The other day while I was looking in vain for Monarch caterpillars, I did see several other species, including a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), a Fiery Skipper and one of the yellow Sulphur type butterflies, probably a California Dogface (Zerene eurydice), although it was moving too fast for me to get a good look at it.

I found that very encouraging after the absence of Monarch caterpillars.

Painted Lady

A world without beautiful butterflies would be too bleak to contemplate.

Fiery Skipper

Fiery Skipper

I've been seeing this small orange and brown butterfly in the butterfly garden in our front yard, but didn't know what it was.  Because it's fairly small and moves so fast, I wasn't able to get a good look at it, let alone a picture of it, until today.

However, now that I've managed to get a photo of it, our trusty San Diego Natural History Museum comes through again with the information that this is a Fiery Skipper, one of the most common butterflies in the area.

These butterflies are "abundant around residential lawns".  Our neighbors provide plenty of the Bermuda Grass the Fiery Skipper larvae favor, and we're happy to provide the plants the adult butterflies like for nectar.