While picking lemons yesterday morning, I noticed something bright yellow on a leaf.
It wasn’t a lemon, but a bright yellow-orange butterfly.
I believe it is a Large Orange Sulphur, Phoebis agarithe, which would make sense because we have at least two of the potential host plants in our yard: desert fern, Lysiloma watsonii and possibly Senna. I will definitely be on the look out for caterpillars in the next few weeks.
Anyway, you can get great butterfly photographs in butterfly houses, but it is even more exciting to catch one resting free.
We spent the weekend in the mountains of northeastern Arizona chasing butterflies with some members of the Central Arizona Butterfly Association.
Some of the butterflies were not ready to pose.
Others were very cooperative.
Although I learned a lot about butterflies this weekend, I mostly learned how little I know. There are many more butterfly species out there than I ever imagined.
Finding Butterflies in Arizona: A Guide to the Best Sites by Richard Bailowitz, Hank Brodkin (Author, Photographer), Priscilla Brodkin (Photographer), Kenn Kaufman (Foreword)
Butterflies of Arizona: A Photographic Guide by Hank Brodkin, Priscilla Brodkin and Bob Stewart
Arizona Butterflies & Moths: An Introduction to Familiar Species (A Pocket Naturalist Guide) by James Kavanagh and Raymond Leung (Illustrator)
Butterflies through Binoculars: The West A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Western North America (Butterflies and Others Through Binoculars Field Guide Series.) by Jeffrey Glassberg
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