There are lots of different species of skipper butterflies in my area and it is hard for me to tell them apart. I spotted this beautiful little butterfly last Wednesday at Green Spring Gardens, just a few miles from where I live. I think that it is a Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon), although it might possibly be the similar-looking Peck’s butterfly. I’d like to say that there is a scientific reason why I chose Zabulon over Peck’s, but it really is because I think that Zabulon is the cooler name of the two—I love the exotic sound of the word “Zabulon.”
I tried to get down to eye-level with the butterfly when I photographed it so that the background would fall away into a pleasant green blur and was largely successful. I like too that I was able to capture some of the green striations in the leaf on which the butterfly is perched and those little lines help to lead the viewer’s eyes to the butterfly.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Awesome shot 👍👌
Do you know anything about the source of the name ‘Zabulon’? I kept trying to read it as ‘Zebulon,’ as in Zebulon Pike. While trying to sort myself out, I became curious about the actual name, but couldn’t find anything.
I did some searching and it looks like Zabulon may be a variant of Zebulon, who was the last of six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob’s tenth son) in the Old Testament. Some of the versions of the French Bible show his name listed as “Zabulon.” The fact that this species of butterfly was first described by a French naturalist Jean Baptiste Boisduval may be the reason why a slight variant of the name was used.
Lovely.
Beautiful shot! I think you nailed the desired foreground and background perfectly! And it’s definitely a skipper of some sort, but I don’t know my skippers for your area. Like you, I think the name Zebulon is way cooler than Pecks. LOL