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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Blooms & Flutterbys

On a recent outing along the river walk here in Nashua, NH, so called as it's a paved path along part of the Nashua River near the mill apartments we live in now, these were some, of the colorful blooms.
There was also a fritillary butterfly which only on this flower alone. This butterfly is sometimes mistaken for its more famous distant cousin, the monarch butterfly, although they seem very different to me

Most fritillaries are orange and black like monarchs, but with a different pattern. However, some are about the same size. There are 14 species of the so-called greater fritillaries (genus Speyeria) and 16 lesser fritillaries (genus Bolloria). Their names refer to their sizes. 



The common name comes from the Latin, fritillus, meaning chessboard or dice box.  Another name for these butterflies is silverspots because of metallic markings on their wing's undersides. It's possible that this pattern serves as a camouflage too.

Like many butterflies, the fritillary caterpillar is selective about what it eats. It doesn't favor milkweed like monarchs. It prefers violets and without violets, there would be no fritillary butterflies. Adults go for nectar of native flowers, such as butterfly weed, common milkweed, Joe-pye-weed and others. They also visit non-native flowers such as lilacs, butterfly bush and some thistles.

Soon two fritillaries were on the same bloom and didn't seem to mind sharing.

I don't know the name of this flower, but it was certainly attractive as a third fritillary landed on the same flower despite other blooms nearby.
Whatever reason these blooms were the attractive to this trio, it provided a great photo opportunity during my late afternoon walk.

15 comments:

baili said...

Look at your photography my friend!!!

Lovely capturing here ,found it truly a DELIGHT to my soul.
thank you for your walk along the river that brought such colors in my day dear!

diane b said...

Fabulous captures of the blooms and the butterflies. I love river walks you are lucky to have one nearby.

Anvilcloud said...

That was a wonderful visitation, and you have the photos to prove it.

MadSnapper said...

gorgeous flowers and gorgeous flying flowers. I love our fritteraires, they are called gulf and are beautiful to

Emma Springfield said...

Don't you just love the bright and varied colors of the flowers?

Connie said...

Gorgeous photos! Looks like a lovely place to walk.

Ginnie said...

Great pictures and thanks for the info. You are lucky to live in such a beautiful area.

William Kendall said...

Beautiful flowers, and lovely butterflies!

Anonymous said...

Very sharp photos. Love those butterflies.

Kay G. said...

Great photos of your butterflies! We have two fratilleries, the gulf fritillary and the Great Spangled fritillary! We have been very excited over our butterflies this year, they have really loved the Mexican sunflowers that we planted this year. They LOVE them!

Valerie said...

Love the photographs. Flowers we have in abundance but, oddly, no butterflies except as cabbage white. They all seem to have disappeared from my area.

A Cuban In London said...

Gorgeous photos. :-) Thanks.

Greetings from London.

possum said...

SOOOOOOOOOOOO beautiful.

Loads of butterflies here, too, as the fall azaleas have started to bloom, phlox is still blooming, Crape myrtle, butterfly bushes...
Love it!

L. D. said...

These are such great photos. I really like your butterflies. I don['t see that kind very often.

Anonymous said...

These are terrific photos. I love all of them.