Thursday, September 16, 2010

Aster novae-angliae, skippers and bees

Common in the Midwest, New England Aster is extremely attractive to insects, especially skippers and bees. The larger butterfly is probably a Silver-Spotted Skipper. If anyone could identify the others, that would be wonderful.







"The delicate tremble of a butterfly’s wings in my hand, the soft petals of violets curling in the cool folds of their leaves or lifting sweetly out of the meadow grass, the clear firm outline of face and limb, the smooth arch of a horse’s neck and the velvety tough of his nose – all these, and a thousand resultant combinations, which take shape in my mind, constitute my world." Helen Keller

2 comments:

Scott Namestnik said...

Nice photos, Keith. Everyone should click on these photos to expand them and take a look those tongues!

Hopefully someone who knows more about the grass skippers than I do responds as well, but my best guesses are Fiery Skipper (second photo) and Peck's Skipper (third photo). I agree that the first and last photos are of a Silver-spotted Skipper.

Anonymous said...

I agree on Silver-spotted and Peck's Skippers. You've also got a Bumble Bee (large) and Sweat Bee (green). But I'm terrible at partly-open wing shots of grass skippers, so stumped on that one.