Caterpillar

Found on a tiny madrone tree. These photos make me feel that I've never seen a caterpillar before . . . or at least that I've never noticed one so much, looked so close, seen in such detail. I wonder what kind it is . . . 

Butterfly: Gulf Fritillary

Iron Butterfly

Seen in the hill country southwest of Austin on Sunday afternoon, high atop a (maybe expired) telephone pole.

Gretchen, I Found Out About the Butterflies

On Thursday October 15th a giant cloud of butterflies descended upon Austin; Gretchen and I saw them in different areas as we made our separate ways to our lunch date. I've never seen anything like it before; the entire sky was full of butterflies! I asked my mother the next day if she'd seen them; she hadn't, but showed me this article from the local paper that explains that they were snout butterflies on the hunt for food.


On Saturday I saw more of them, though much fewer in number overall, along RR12 and in Dripping Springs.




On Sunday, we had our own private little cloud of them in our meadow; they were going mad over just this one plant (though there are others like it nearby, and dozens of flowers are in bloom right now). It was beautiful and strange!

Tiny Olive Hairstreak

This is one of my favorite butterflies; they are tiny and gorgeously colored. They seem to groove on equally tiny flowers, such as these garlic chives (which Dennis gave me, which miraculously have not died in my care).

More of the Tiger Swallowtail...

...just because it was so beautiful and so GIANT.

Giant Tiger Swallowtail!

This butterfly was around all day yesterday. It is enormous! Its wingspan is larger than the length of my hand! 

Winter Butterflies

There are a lot of these butterflies afoot (a-wing?) in the last many days.

Other Butterflies