I’ve been focused on other things so far this year, so I haven’t been working out in the garden nearly as much. And without being outside as much, I haven’t encountered nearly as many animals as I normally do. This weekend, though, I was able to get out in the back yard for a little while, and I found a few insects flying around.
One was a moth that I’d never seen before, Slosson’s metalmark (Tortyra slossonia). Very flashy, quite small; it was walking around on a typically huge elderberry flower (technically an inflorescence, or collection of flowers) that was about six inches diameter. It was fairly quiescent, which normally makes for a good photographic subject, but the wind was blowing the plant around fairly frequently, making focusing a challenge. Unfortunately, right as the wind started to settle, the moth was flushed by an approaching butterfly, and I never saw it again. Here’s the best image I was able to obtain:
The plant was in shade, so I had to use flash, and the tone of the image is a bit muted compared to the brilliant metallic orange-red of the wing stripes, but the “face” of this little beast is so interesting I had to show a picture of it somehow. I can’t wait to meet this guy again and get some more shots!
And over on the sunny side of the house, I saw a pair of male little brown butterflies giving each other problems. Neither one wanted to allow the other a place to perch and bask and (perhaps) espy a passing female. But every now and then one would alight for a few seconds and allow a frame or two to be squeezed off. Here’s one that worked, well enough to ID the guy as a Horace’s Duskywing (Erynnis horatius):
If you’re curious, you can see a female E. horatius that I found a few years ago in the “courtyard”; that experience prompted a brief write-up on the “little brown jobs” common to birding and butterflying.