Thursday, July 22, 2010
Hummingbirds and Butterflies
The kids and I get home after running some errands. My son gets to the back window and yells, "Mommy. Look at that bird!" Expecting to see a robin, cardinal, or other common backyard bird, I peek out. A female ruby-throated hummingbird! My second sighting in my yard this season. I'm sure there would have been more sightings, but the sweltering heat and humidity has kept us prisoner indoors. Of course I place out all five feeders instead of the three I've been maintaining. Then my son tells me that he wants to go on a butterfly and bird watching trip in the backyard. We saw this lovely spicebush swallowtail on our adventure.
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I'm wondering if that's not really a black form of the eastern tiger swallowtail! :) You can see the stripes and a yellow cast through the black, and the white spots on the wings aren't as big as they are on the spicebush. On the side view I don't see the distinctive blue cone on the hindwing either. I only saw my first one this year and felt lucky as I get many yellows, as well as a few spicebush butterflies as well.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought it was a black swallowtail at first as well...until I ran in a grabbed the ID book out of my kitchen. I took it outside and ths guy definitely was a spicebush. The coloring in the photo is a bit off due to sunlight passing through his wings making them glow. This butterfly didn't really have yellow dots above the blue portion on its hindwings. The yellow cast is just from the sunlight passing through them. In person it was black with white dots along the wings and blue coloring on its hingwings. It was also a bit larger than a black swallowtail. Either way though, I'm just so happy to have these large beauties fluttering around the garden.
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