Butterflies, flowers and hummingbirds--the fun and easy to see colors of late summer.
Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, above and below on phlox. Both hummingbirds and butterflies visit phlox.
Swallowtails are our largest butterflies in North America, and one of the most obvious because of their beautiful colors. The male is always yellow, as shown in the above images. The female can be either yellow or black. But their large size and obvious color doesn't mean you can't discover a new species in the swallowtail family.
Only seven years ago, a brand new eastern swallowtail species was discovered and categorized, the Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail. Though very similar in appearance, amazingly, this species is even large than the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and has a wider band of blue on its under-wings. Visit the link to see the size difference and other more subtle differences between the two species: Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail
The "warbler of butterflies", the skipper is usually a comparatively drab family of butterflies and its often difficult to separate the species. The male Zebulon Skipper, however, is more brightly colored and it was fun to discover this male visiting my purple lantana, above and below.
This is also the time of years we enjoy an increase in hummingbird activity. If you aren't seeing many, "put out more feeders" coached Bob Sargent at our recent hummingbird festival in Knoxville. And it's true. Add more flowers and more feeders and the hummingbirds will come. Below, a mature male ruby-throat. Did you know the ruby-throated male has black chin feathers? Check the image. This is not the shifting of light on iridescent feathers. His red gorget begins right below his black chin.
By this time in August, hummingbirds from the north are already moving southward and local juveniles have fledged and are frequenting feeders. Even those rare species that we sometimes find here in the winter are already arriving now. The most common of these is the Rufous hummingbird, but Black-chinned hummingbirds, Allen's, Anna's and others have also been discovered migrating and wintering in the east, and sometimes they arrive as early as August.
I enjoyed participating in a hummingbird banding session with Mark and Jane Armstrong recently and tried my hand at recording the data. Jane was busy capturing and retrieving hummingbirds from the traps and Mark, who is a Master Bander in both song birds and hummingbirds, banded and processed the birds. In a two hour period, 40 ruby-throated hummingbirds were processed with 32 newly banded and 8 recaptured.
Above you see a male ruby-throat in heavy molt. The white streaks you see are pin feathers where new feathers are growing. And below a recently fledged juvenile showing his bright yellow mouth as he chirps in protest. He was skillfully banded, health evaluated, and released.Upcoming: Getting ready for Alaska--in seven days!
Links and Resources:
My blog posts on Hummingbird banding. Visit this post to read the various species that have been documented in the east during fall and winter months.
Hummingbird Study Group
Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Skippers
Oh thank you for posting about the Appalachian Swallow tail.
ReplyDeleteI recently found a non living but perfect butterfly in a parking lot. I was looking it up and discovered for the first time about the Appalachian Swallowtail. At the site I was looking I couldn't tell the difference. So I wondered what I had.
But now I see it was an Eastern. Still very beautiful. It would have been nice to find the "new discovery" though.
Those were really good pictures and descriptions. I'm sure I could tell which is which now.
Thank you for posting this. I always enjoy your blog.
Thank you, Beth. I always enjoy hearing from you. I only just discovered the Appalachian swallow tail while I was reading my Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America and then I found the link to the great pics showing the difference in color and size. Spectacular butterflies!
ReplyDeleteThank you Vickie, just wonderful series of images. I had just posted the largest North American Butterfly image on my blog and FB the other day. Someone that saw my image, let me know that they had discovered the Appalachian and that it was now the largest. The one that I photographed had a marvelous beige,, tan and brown colouration.
ReplyDeleteI so hope you enjoy your journey to Alaska. I hear it is a great adventure. Stay safe~
Thank you, Mary. I have never seen a giant swallowtail and envy your good fortune. The swallowtail family is so much larger in numbers than I realized until recently. Alaska has Canadian Tiger Swallowtails and Old World Swallowtails so I'll be on the look out for them.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!!! My friend has lots of flowers blooming right now and several hummer feeders which are literally covered up with birds.
ReplyDeleteYou lucky duck getting to go to Alaska!! Have fun!!