Early Spring Pollinators

— Spring 2023 is off to an excellent start for wildflowers and pollinators. The weather has been varying quite a bit since the beginning of the year. As a result of that, and unseasonably warm winter temperatures, many wildflowers began blooming earlier than we usually see them.

In mid-February 2023, we began seeing Mexican Plum trees blooming and coming out with their striking white flowers. Along with those, we noticed a lot of activity from butterflies and hummingbird moths. On a walk I did with a couple of friends in February at Krause Springs, we saw a few Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies enjoying the nectar of Mexican Plum flowers. On that same day and tree, a hummingbird moth was also competing for attention from our cameras. Because of their predominantly black color with blue accents, Pipevine Swallowtails are also known as Blue Swallowtails. They are large butterflies measuring from 2.75″ to 4.0″ (or 7 cm to 10 cm).

Also in late February, while on a hike at Inks Lake SP, I came across this beautiful Red Admiral butterfly feasting on a Stretchberry bush. According to the USDA, Red Admiral butterflies are people-friendly, something a friend and I witnessed firsthand as those butterflies did not seem to mind our presence. Those Stretchberry bushes were beginning to flower. According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the “early flowering period provides nectar for early spring butterflies.”

The latest discovery I ran into happened just early in March right here in Austin, Texas, at a local park. At Balcones District Park, I saw a Juniper Hairstreak butterfly. It is featured right at the top of this post. While making macro photos of redbud flowers a week ago, I spotted this tiny and cute Juniper Hairstreak butterfly in my viewfinder. Its color stood out among the pink of the redbud flowers. With its wings wide open, this butterfly’s size is between 0.75″ – 1.25″ (or 1.9 cm – 3.1 cm). With its wings closed, as in the photo above, this butterfly is barely the size of a dime (10-cent US coin or 0.7″ or 1.8 cm).

All of the photos featured here are single macro images and not focus-stacked. I was lucky to get them mostly all in focus because of their small size and my lens position directly facing their side (all in the same focal plane). Be sure to click on all images to see their full sizes.

For Denzil Nature’s challenge on pink.