Butterflies in the Backyard

When you have wild flowers in your yard, there will also be butterflies. Since I have left the Asian dayflower weeds alone when mowing the yard, there are now flowers there every day. They bloom in the morning and wilt at night. But every time I am in the backyard Bow and Leo and Brownie are all there.

Every time the dogs see that I am interested in something, they come huffing and puffing along to see what it is, and if I haven't frightened the butterfly away, the dogs always do. That's how I missed  a perfectly good shot of a Red Admiral, and Common Buckeye and countless others that were attracted by the dayflowers. But yesterday I got lucky. Despite the chimp and dog noises, and with the dogs milling around everywhere, I got quite a few butterfly pictures, anyway.

There was a damaged red-spotted purple butterfly who took refuge on the wall of the house just above where the dog dishes were.

At about the same time, a silver spotted skipper came by and seemed to want to clean the dog food bowl.

There are always crumbs of dog food that no matter how hungry they are, the dogs cannot seem to lap up,

The skipper seemed to want to finish up the job.

Meanwhile, the damaged red-spotted purple was still in the area.

And though I thought that I had seen it take off over the wall, a little later I saw it, or a near relative with a damaged wing, in the back of the yard, by the trampoline.

On a nearby dayflower, an undamaged red-spotted purple was resting.

The dark blue of the red-spotted purple went well with the two blue petals of the dayflower.

You might think that with the much wider variety of flowers in my front yard and the pasture and the woods, there would be many more butterflies outside of the backyard with its barking dogs and displaying chimpanzee.

Ashy Sunflowers in the Pasture

And, of course, there are. There are, for instance,  many yellow butterflies, clouded and unclouded sulfurs, I think they are called, but they are so flitty that they will not stop for a picture.

In the afternoon, I even thought I saw a Monarch flying over the pasture. But I could only film it from afar.