Bugfest at 10 p.m.

Time for another set of photos inspired by my camera. Yesterday was a slugfest. Today is a bugfest. But don’t worry. They’re only pictures!

First up is a pine white butterfly (Neophasia menapia), as seen at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. This lovely creature, also known as the pine butterfly, feeds on the needles of pine and certain fir trees when it is a caterpillar, and on nectar as an adult. This butterfly is sampling some butterfly milkweed nectar at the moment.

Next, we have another butterfly, photographed in a quiet park in Tucson, Arizona on a bright, sunny day. This one has a long name: Ministryomon janevicroy. It’s perched on an upright prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera, or Mexican hat). The Ministryomon janevicroy gets its name from the spouse (Jane Vicroy Scott) of its discoverer, Jeffrey Glassberg. I think this is my favorite butterfly because it’s so powdery white, with thin, orange, wavy lines. Its most unique feature is its OLIVE GREEN EYES. If you zoom in, you can probably see them.

Working our way from pretty to a little bit scary, we have this little bee. Or is it a wasp? I’m not sure. It’s feeding on an Echinacea flower, which is in the daisy family. You can just scroll right past it if you have a fear of bees.

And you might want to scroll past the next one, too. In fact, I recommend it. It’s a horse lubber grasshopper (Taeniopoda eques). Believe it or not, I was able to take this photo up close without getting (too) grossed out. There were four or five of these big lugs, or should I say lubbers, hopping around on my fairy duster plant one day (again, in Tucson), so I did what every dedicated photographer does when they see a huge, disgusting insect: grab their camera and snap away. Then they yell “Ewww” and run screaming into the house. At least that’s what I did.

I enjoy taking pictures of butterflies and then identifying them via Google. It’s not that hard. You just have to be persistent. It’s not like identifying birds, which are hard to photograph in the first place, and then have so many variations within species. At least that’s been my experience.

On the other hand, I’m not wild about staring at pictures of insects for very long, but that’s just me.

The above pictures were taken some years back. Now, with my newer camera and a bit more free time, I’m hoping to capture better butterfly pictures in the future (and probably no more insects, if I can help it, except maybe a dragonfly … or a caterpillar … but no more horse lubbers, I promise!). All of that will have to wait, though. It’s currently 33 degrees out where I live now, and snow is in the forecast.

I think I’ll stick to indoor photography for the next three or four months. Then maybe I’ll start bugging people with pictures of bugs again.

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This is post #17 of the month-long challenge known as #NaBloPoMo or #NanoPoblano. To follow my blog, please click below where it says “Follow loristory.”

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Featured image by ArtsyBee @ pixabay.com