Red-Spotted Purple

With a title like that I bet you were expecting red spots, weren’t you? Well, they are there, but hidden on the underside of this large butterfly’s wings.  I’ll try to photograph one with his wings raised so I can show you how pretty they are. Hopefully you  share my delight in this side of things

Pearl Crescent

Melissa Blue Fine Art These little butterflies are quite zippy and skittish. I see them fluttering low along the trail and moving restlessly from flower to flower. When I began monitoring, in Peoria, they were quite plentiful but up here they aren’t as numerous. It is interesting how digital photos can see right through layers

Eastern-tailed Blue

Melissa Blue Fine Art I’m partial to these small powdery blue butterflies. I saw this little fellow along the trail at St. Francis Wood in Libertyville. They are similar to spring azures, but much easier to study as they will settle down for you. Azures are very skittish, in my experience, and difficult to sneak up

Spangled Fritillary

Great spangled fritillaries are the cheetahs of the butterfly world~orange streaks of energy flashing past as you walk along. As you can see here, they do stop to fuel up at monarda blossoms, and that gave me my chance for a photograph. Twenty years ago, if you drove for any distance in Illinois your radiator and