Butterfly Dreams

I go through these days when I just can't think of anything particularly meaningful to post that hasn't been said already. I'm into all the political stuff that's going on, and I'm reading, but my brain just can't think of anything relevant to add. Sometimes, on days like this, I do photo diaries, usually of birds or of light drawings.

Today, I thought, maybe I should do something about butterflies.

I do a lot of birding, but sometimes (actually, kind of often) things can get quiet while birding and I'll notice interesting insects. Fortunately, my camera allows me to get decent insect photography as well. While I don't know much at all about insects, I do know I enjoy photographing them. After the fold is a mixture of butterfly and moth pictures, many of which I've managed to identify (with help), but some of which I haven't.

*Note*: these are smaller versions of the photos, all of which are hotlinks to the larger version. The links also frequently tell you what kind of camera I was using when I took the photo and if it's my primary lens, they've got a "Sigma 50-500mm" tag added. That's the lens I use for most wildlife photography and is very flexible in the field.

My primary camera is a Pentax K20d, but some of these were taken with earlier models (*ist, K100D, K10d). That said, here are the butterflies:

This photo is of a mystery butterfly. I don't know what it is, but I'd appreciate any help. It was taken at Parker River Wildlife Refuge in early October of 2007:



This is a pair of white admirals, which found something it liked on the ground near our campsite a few years back.



This is an atlantis frittilary from Woodford, VT from two years ago:



This is Tiger Swallowtail from our garden, taken while I was still using a 35mm camera:



This Common wood nymph also came from Parker River Wildlife Refuge, from August of 2006:



This Black Swallowtail showed up while we were up on Putney Mountain watching hawk migration a couple years ago:



This red admiral showed up in our gardens one day:



This mystery moth was in our gardens last year:



This Milbert's Tortoiseshell was flitting around while we were looking for obscure sparrows this weekend. No obscure sparrows, but nice butterfly:



This is a Silver-Spotted Skipper from our gardens:



This Great Spangled Frittilary was in a spot we found while driving around the Island Pond area in Northeastern Vermont:



This creature showed up while we were looking for unusual birds in Kennebunk, ME a few weeks ago:



And, to close, one more photo of a Monarch Butterfly: