Beautiful Woodland butterfly

Feeds:: Posts; Comments

Beautiful Woodland butterfly

July 10, 2014 by Mike Powell

When I am walking through the woods adjacent to the marsh, I often see small brown butterflies flitting about, but it’s rare that one lands in a place where I can photograph it. Last week, however, I got lucky and I was finally able to get some shots of one of these elusive butterflies.

Now that I have the images, I am faced with the difficult task of trying to identify the butterfly. There are a lot of brown butterflies with a numerous eye spots on the wings and to my untrained eyes, they all look pretty much the same. I think this one may be of the genus Lethe, but is it a Pearly Eye, an Appalachian Brown, an Eyed Brown, or something entirely different?

For now, I’ll fall back on an old habit and make up my own name for the butterfly and call it the Beautiful Woodland butterfly.

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, butterfly, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Lethe genus, Tamron 180mm macro lens, woods | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on July 10, 2014 at 6:24 am | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

That name is fitting! The folks at Bug guide could probably help with the identification.
- on July 10, 2014 at 6:30 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I may send the photos over and see what they saw or when I have a bit more time, I may dig a little deeper and try to figure it out myself.
on July 10, 2014 at 8:40 am | Reply donna213

I chuckled. I do the same thing and resort to some descriptive name. Sometimes I spend too much time looking for the correct name and then just throw in the towel.
on July 10, 2014 at 9:55 am | Reply Bruce Ruston

I know what you mean 🙂 we do have butterflies like this over in the UK, we call them Ringlet, however even then there are enough different shades of brown to make you wonder even then if you got ID right. mind you I am still a little jealous that you get more colorful ones over there 😦
on July 15, 2014 at 10:47 pm | Reply joeschelling

Are these the same butterfly, Mike? The top one looks like Northern Pearly-eye (Enodia anthedon), while the bottom one is a Little Wood-Satyr (Megisto cymela). When I need help, the regional experts at butterfliesandmoths.org are quick to help with id’s. Saw my first ones of these guys in TN earlier this month, but am pretty sure that’s what they are.
- on July 16, 2014 at 5:30 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Joe, for the help with identification. I chased several butterflies in the woods that day in succession, so it is more than possible that the the images are in fact of different butterflies. I’ll keep that website in mind when I need assistance. Butterflies seem scarce so far this summer. I have seen only a single Eastern Swallowtail and no Monarchs and Swallowtails. I did see a Common Buckeye this past weekend, which was nice.