Rayetta's Butterflies - The Big Yellow Ones

We are almost to the point on this year's ellipse that I began the CB butterfly documentation during the last ellipse. But now, I can sight identify lots of the CB butterflies, as opposed to maybe one I could sight identify by myself at this approximate point on last year's ellipse. Sight identification makes documentation lots easier.

This week I have been practicing sight identification on the big yellow butterflies. These are the cloudless sulphur (Phoebis sennae) and the large orange sulphur (Phoebis agarithe). I believe that last fall, the season we now call, Hope Remains, I managed to get documentation photographs of these two species, barely, maybe. These big yellow ones are nervous and fidgety.


Of the two, the cloudless sulphur is more common at the CB than the large orange sulphur. Yet it is easy to pick out the large orange sulphurs, because they are more orangy yellow than the cloudless sulphurs which are lemony yellow. At least I think so, although, exceptions may occur. I just have not seen those exceptions yet.

In addition to these large dashing butterflies, we continue inundated with skippers. The clouded skipper (Lerema accius) has replaced the bordered patch as our most common butterfly. Also today, a new documentation record occurred for a skipper. The documentation appears to indicate a Celia's roadside skipper (Amblyscirtes celia), but it may be a dotted or even a bronze roadside skipper. I need to study the photographic evidence some more. Whichever, all those are new to the CB. Hmmm. I wonder why we do not have lots of roadside skippers. Seems like we ought to have three fifties of them.

At this nonce, the floristic elements that are attracting the butterflies are Ipoemoea trichocarpa, Ruellia drummondiana, Anisocanthus wrightii, and Verbesina virginica. The Ipoemoea trichocarpa is super abundant this year and many butterflies really like it. The Ruellia fetches mostly skippers. Most of the big butterflies, (swallowtails, sulphurs and fritillaries) really like the Anisocanthus.

That Ipoemoea is another good example of a very common weed being a great butterfly plants. Ditto the Verbesina.

Another note on butterfly ecology, butterflies like big bunches of flowers of the same kind packed close together. That's sensible, right. The closer the same kind of flowers are packed together, the less work and thinking the average butterfly must put into foraging. That also may be why butterfly densities at plant nurseries seem relatively high. Course the butterflies have to like the plants in the first place for all this theorizing to pan out.

Another common, fixing to get abundant, flowering floristic element at the CB for the nonce, is Agalinis heterophylla. Generally, speaking, the butterflies ignore this generally very common scroph. But that may change. We shall see.