Butterflies

This morning I went out to check my azaleas, which are loaded with blooms this spring, to see if there were any interesting things feeding on the blooms.  There were the usual bumblebees, honeybees, and several Papilio glaucus, Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies, flitting about on the blossoms.  They are quite hard to photograph because they spend so little time on each blossom.

In this picture, the swallow tail can easily be seen.

Butterflies, papillion, in French and mariposas in Spanish are beautiful creatures with beautiful names. They remind me of colorful fall leaves which have acquired the ability to fly about from flower to flower.  But they are as fragile as they are lovely.  One can't be touched without its losing some of the "powder" which coats its wings.

The wonderful migrating monarch resembles the swallowtail, but there are differences.  Like the humming birds, the monarch flies hundreds of miles south to a certain place in Mexico to winter.  How they do it, their being seemingly so fragile is difficult to understand.  The differences between the two are that the monarch lacks the swallowtail and the patterns are different, but the colors are similar and hard to discern unless they are close to you.

I have always planned to become more familiar with the different ones - I even bought a great field guide, but use it for identification rather than to study and learn the wide variety of these beautiful insects.

To me, butterflies, more than any other living things, herald the beginning of spring. I remember when I was a child growing up in the country, the rule of thumb to determine when it was warm enough to go barefoot, was when we could count three different butterflies in a day.  Then it was, "shoes off!" "Freedom!"... but stone bruises and briar scratches - but who cared, we were young and would easily mend.

Besides, in a few weeks, our soles would be as tough as leather.