All the Painted Ladies

Despite the warm weather, nature knows that fall is coming. Leaves are quietly dropping, and each stray leaf still tricks my mind into thinking that a butterfly is fluttering by. A few are still flying, mostly Gulf Fritillaries and Cloudless Sulphurs. A couple of weeks ago, right after I wrote my wrap-up of 2017 butterflies, a new one came through – a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui).

The ladies that I usually see are the American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), a very similar butterfly that hosts on pussytoes and related plants. The Painted Lady is considered a visitor to Georgia while the American Lady is a resident. Although the butterflies look very similar, the Painted Lady uses different host plants, including mallow relatives. It’s amazing they can look so similar and yet use different plants.

American Lady

Painted Lady

I never expected to see one, but this year’s Painted Lady population seems to have exploded. Reports of huge populations in the west (Nebraska, Colorado) are in the news. This species is another one of the butterflies that migrate for the winter, usually going to the southwest part of the United States.

I first saw this butterfly at the Riverwalk in Roswell on September 30^th; several of them were nectaring on pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) in the wetlands (see picture on left). A friend mentioned that they’d had one of them visit and that got me thinking that maybe one had visited me too, just the week before.

Their behavior is slightly different from the American Lady: they have a rapid, erratic flight and are generally a bit skittish. Luckily, one came to visit just two days after my Roswell sighting, allowing me to add this species to my list.

Painted Lady

It's been a relatively good butterfly year, at least in terms of diversity. Many of my friends have also reported seeing zebra longwing butterflies just like I did.

And yesterday I saw two monarch butterflies on pansies at Lowes and another one at Home Depot. I had no idea that monarch butterflies would use pansies for nectar. I immediately picked up some that were neonic-free.