I have seen birds and bees stick their heads inside tubular flowers, but I had never before seen a small butterfly do so. I watched this Cloudless Sulphur butterfly (Phoebis Sennae) yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge almost bury itself inside this flower as it searched for nectar. I love the way that the light was shining though its wings, illuminating some of the fine details of its tiny body.
I think that this is a Cloudless Sulphur butterfly, but I am easily confused because there is a similar-looking Clouded Sulphur butterfly. To borrow a line from Joni Mitchell, “I really don’t know clouds at all.”
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
It’s a thing I’ve seen several do especially our Orange-tips and Brimstones.
Nice capture I do like back lighting.
It was pretty cool to see. I actually had to wait for the butterfly to pull its head out a little from inside the flower to get this shot. I did a quick search on your Brimstones and they seem to look quite similar to the butterfly that I photographed. Backlighting is something that I usually love, especially when the subject is translucent.
If Benjamin and I had not read this post before viewing the photo, we might have thought it leaves fallen inside a flower! We are both taken with the brilliant green coloration of the wings. On our adventuring we have seen many different butterflies, but never this one. Benjamin’s close inspection of the enlarged photo brought his attention to something that I missed : “The bottoms on the flower and the not open ones almost look the same as the butterfly’s wings.” Thank-you, Mr. Mike!! P.S. Benjamin left a note on the Sci-fi Spider post for you!
I actually worried that folks would not know that it was a butterfly, so I chose to use one of the images that shows one of the butterfly’s antennas. These butterflies are pretty small, compared with Eastern Swallowtails and Monarch, so they are hard to spot.
Great timing! That sulphur is likely not used to “diving” for nectar. I really like the effect the backlighting gives to the photo as it highlights the upper wing pattern.
The butterfly looks like it could be a part of the flower! What a lovely shade of green this butterfly is! 🌿