Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Butterfly Banquet

Question Mark
The heady scent of our two wild privets has summoned a profusion of butterflies, flitting greedily from blossom to blossom, then swirling up into flickering arabesques.  Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) and Question Marks (Polygonia interrogationis) are sharing the bounty with occasional honeybees, probably from the bee tree right down the street.  A member of the Ligustrum family, wild privet is invasive but fairly well-behaved (with vigilant weeding) in our city yard.  And how the birds love the little dark berries.  A mockingbird claims the tree in the front as its private larder, but when the cedar waxwings come through, they mob both trees in ravenous frenzy.

Red Admiral

2 comments:

  1. In the interest of "full disclosure," should you have mentioned the -downside- to the birds eating those yummy little dark berries? :)

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