Beth's Patch ~ Autumn Joy Sedum And Pollinators

 Autumn Joy Sedum is a "chocolate cake" to the butterflies & bugs when blooming in the fall. It can get tall, leggy and fall over so I cut mine back twice during the summer so it gets bushier and stays more compact. Sedum loves full sun but can also take partial shade. It's so worth it to have in your gardens. And if you knock a branch off just stick it into the ground where it'll root itself

Sachem Skippers

Gray Hairstreak

Summer Azure

Summer Azure (top left) and Eastern-tailed Blue (bottom right)

Crab Spider waiting to take an unsuspecting butterfly

American Lady

Painted Ladies and Common Buckeyes

Native Honey Bee

Milkweed Bug

Beth's Patch ~ Butterflies

Several first of year butterflies in the past week.  Butterflies have been scarce this year so while I have seen a total of 28 species in the yard in 2020, the numbers of those butterflies is low.  That means usually just one or two of a species has been seen here.  For this time of year that's unusual but it goes with the unusual weather we had in the spring.

First of Year ~ Painted Lady on 8/1/20

First of Year ~ Red-banded Hairstreak on 8/3/20

Gray Hairstreak seen on 7/29.  This is only the second one I have seen here in the yard with the first seen on 5/25/20 which was almost 8 weeks ago.

First of Year ~ Variegated Fritillary Butterfly on 7/29/20

Beth's Patch ~ Recent Butterflies

Red Admiral Butterfly

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly laying eggs

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Painted Lady Butterfly

Mating Monarch Butterflies

My Yard ~ First of Year Butterflies

Red-banded Hairstreak

Common Sootywing Skipper

Painted Lady Butterfly

Gray Hairstreak

My Yard ~ Butterflies continue to Increase in Numbers

Lots of American Lady Butterflies these days

American Lady Butterfly

Sachem Skippers, Pained Lady Butterflies and American Lady Butterflies
enjoying the  Purple coneflowers.

My Yard ~ Butterflies & Dragonflies

Sachem Skippers on parade

Painted Lady Butterfly on Cosmos

Monarch Butterfly on Tropical Milkweed

Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

My Yard ~ Painted Lady Butterfly

 This Painted Lady came to hang out in my gardens for the 5 days which was great considering how scare they have been in Southern NJ this year.  Here the butterfly is taking advantage of the rotten fruit I put out for the butterflies.

My Yard ~ Great day in the Gardens

Painted Lady Butterfly

Today's unbelievable 78 degrees with sunshine and light winds brought out 15 different species of butterflies.  There are Monarch and Black Swallowtail caterpillars still munching away on their host plants.  The Long-tailed Skipper continues which is exciting but even better were the 2 Painted Lady butterflies that were in the yard.  This butterfly has been rare in the tri-county area with only 11 seen so far this season.  My two Painted Ladies make numbers 12 and 13 the the counties.

Painted Lady Butterfly

Long-tailed Skipper

Fiery Skipper

Red Admiral Butterfly

Variegated Fritillary 

Cape May Point ~ Triangle Garden

Rare to see a Painted Lady Butterfly this season in NJ.  This is only the 8th sighting a a Painted Lady Butterfly and my first sighting of one in 2016.

Painted Lady Butterfly

My Yard - Recent Butterflies

There haven't been many Painted Lady butterflies around this year but I have been lucky enough to have both Painted Ladies and American Ladies here right now.  I also am putting out the rotten fruit for butterflies that prefer this to flowers.  Today we had a Red-spotted Purple butterfly on the rotten fruit,

Painted Lady Butterfly

American Lady Butterfly

Red-spotted Purple butterfly

Cape May Point State Park

Lots of fun things to see on a walk around Cape May Point Sate Park today.  The birds weren't as good as the butterflies but it was nice to see a young Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding on Marsh Mallow plants and another plant with stalks of purple flowers.  Among the butterflies were male and female Zabulon Skippers, Red Admirals and a Red-spotted Purple Butterfly.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird 

Male Zabulon Skipper

Female Zabulon Skipper

Red Admiral

Red-spotted Purple Butterfly