Silver-spotted Skipper on Wild Bergamot

I encountered this Silver-spotted Skipper (butterfly) drinking nectar from a Wild Bergamot (mint).

This is a fairly common sight. For a period of the summer, Wild Bergamot is a fairly prominent meadow wildflower, Silver-spotted Skippers are pretty common, and these skippers are attracted to colorful (blue, red, purple) wildflowers.

I've talked before about Silver-spotted Skippers, so I'll mention a little about the Wild Bergamot:

  1. They're in the mint family, which also includes catnip and culinary herbs. The stems of mints tend to be squarish, to help you ID them.
  2. They're also called "bee balm", suggesting that they're popular with the bees, and thus tend to be nectar-rich.
  3. A relative, Scarlet Bee Balm, looks similar but is red. Scarlet Bee Balm doesn't seem to do well in my area - unlike Wild Bergamot I don't think I've seen it growing truly wild (though I've seen it in some Duke Farms flowerbeds where it's a little segregated from other wildflowers).
  4. I'm not sure about it's efficacy, but it's been used in folk medicine for colds/flues. Like a lot of plants, you can make a tea from it.

July 18, 2021 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary
Photo 148188265, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)



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