My trip upstate this past weekend was about more than family, food, and feathers (though all three of those things figured heavily).  Somehow we also found time to look at a variety of cool insects, and, of the insects, we most appreciated the butterflies.  As regular readers here know, butterfly identification is not my forte, but as far as lepidopterists go, I am the foremost one in my family, so most of our butterfly appreciation was of the “Oh, that’s pretty” type.  A few butterflies were cooperative enough to stay still long enough for me to misidentify, but, fortunately, I also snapped photos of any that would stay still long enough to let me.  After painstaking hours with field guides I had managed to identify the butterflies below, and ran the ones I was unsure of past Patrick, who, of course, told me that my identifications were 100% correct.

All joking aside, I am getting a bit better at figuring out what butterfly is fluttering by, and I hope to continue to get better at the difficult (to me) hobby of butterfly identification.

Meadow Fritillary Boloria bellona

Common Ringlet Coenonympha tullia

Black Swallowtail Papilio polyxenes

Cabbage White Pieris rapae

extremely worn Red-spotted Purple Limenitis arthemis

Great Spangled Fritillary Speyeria cybele

Common Ringlet Coenonympha tullia

Someday I’ll have them all figured out…and then I’ll start on moths!

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.