northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a butterfly I usually see more of, but haven't seen as much this year, a Common Buckeye . They tend to like meadows but also like mudpuddling , so you can sometimes see them on trails going through meadows. They are a bit camera-shy though, and tend to fly off if you get their attention. I think of this as our most colorful earth-tones butterfly. Granted you can spot a little blue in the eyespot designs on the wings, but for a mostly-brown butterfly they're fairly eye catching.  June 25, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 141962973, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here are a pair of butterflies, a Common Buckeye and a Pearl Crescent , mud-puddling on dung. Though the name mud-puddling conjures up a dirty activity, insects that do this are looking for nutrients that are more abundant on scat or, less easily noticed, areas with urine. Sometimes you'll even see them mud-puddling on rotting fruit or decaying animals. A good mud-puddling location is a good place to find a bunch of butterflies congregating together. Even a small flower patch is more dispersed than fox dung, so the action is sometimes concentrated into a very small area.  I'm not exactly sure how butterflies find a good mud-puddling location in the first place, but there's some evidence that once a butterfly finds a good location the other butterflies (even of different species) take notice and join in. Naturalists have been known to put a fake butterfly in a location in order to convince other butterflies to check the location out. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native ...

Here's a cool-looking butterfly around here, the Common Buckeye . This one seems a little browner though sometimes they'll grayer. They don't have a really close relative around here but as brush-footed butterflies , they have lots of distant relatives around. They're probably one of our best-looking butterflies that are mostly earth-toned in coloring. I'll frequently find them on open ground like this one. I suspect it's basically mud-puddling for nutrients even where there's not much moisture. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve