Great Spangled Fritillary

It looks like I caught this Great Spangled Fritillary in flight, something I rarely attempt because of the difficulties of properly focusing on a moving target. I was probably either:
  • Relying on the camera's autofocus to get a picture of a distant butterfly,
  • Or maybe I had focused on a butterfly and snapped a picture just after it started flying off that spot.
Though this particular individual looks especially bright (perhaps aided by just the right sunlight), Great Spangled Fritillaries are large and orange enough to be both conspicuous and a fairly easy identification. Though orange is a fairly popular color in the butterfly community, their particular pattern makes them difficult to confuse with anything other than a couple rarer and smaller fritillary cousins like this Variegated Fritillary.

On this June trip to Sourland Mountain Preserve, the Great Spangled Fritillaries were out in force; I probably saw 15-20 of them that day. Except for bees, they were probably the primary pollinator out that day. (For a little more about them, I've discussed them before.)

June 15, 2022 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 210218792, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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