Cloudless Sulphurs

Here are a couple more Cloudless Sulphurs. 

Both are looking for nectar on teasels; as I mentioned before teasels are invasive plants but are fairly popular with seed-eating birds and pollinators. For that matter, these wildflowers with lots of small flowers on them (like teasels, milkweeds, goldenrods) are frequently quite popular with pollinators since each of those flowers is a potential source of nectar.

Remember that these guys are usually noticeably bigger than our our sulphurs (also called yellows), and they usually have little or no markings on the wings. In the first picture you can see they sometimes are a greenish-yellow, while the second picture shows one that's more of a light yellow. While it's tempting to try and use subtle coloring as a primary identification tool, that's probably been the source for most of my misidentifications. Whether it's due to normal color variation or weird lighting, color can mislead you.

July 14 at Duke Farms

July 14 at Duke Farms

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