Clover – Tendrils

If only you could see the whole series of images that this one came from. The series is like a dramatic opera without music but so much movement! Butterflies love this flower, Tithonia rotundifolia. That’s the orange flower that caused the drama. I highly recommend it if butterflies bring you pleasure. An annual plant that requires me to remember each year to plant it. Best of luck, if you’re like me and don’t necessarily remember little things like planting this, that, or the other thing at the proper time of year.

But let me get on with the topic at hand. The Sleepy Orange (Eurema nicippe). There are two of them in the small photo above. These beauties can be found in North America, the West Indies, Costa Rica and Belize.

The wing span of the Sleepy Orange is between 1.5 and 2 inches, or about the size of a Cabbage White. The host plants include Cassia, Clover, Wild Sennas, and Partridge Pea. The adult Sleepy Orange loves to sip nectar from flowers using its tongue like a straw.

The flight period of the Sleepy Orange in Virginia are generally June until October. Sometimes several are seen “puddling” or gathering around a puddle or patch of wet sand where they get sips of water along with the natural salts they need.

One of my favorites. A very small butterfly. With a wing span of just three quarters to one inch, the Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas). As is sometimes the case, the thin tails on the hindwings of this butterfly, above, have been rubbed off.

This butterfly, a female, has the tails that are a clue to what the species is. The female’s upper wing surface is pale blue, brown or a dark gray while the male’s is blue.

And here, above, is a male with his stunning blue upper wings. And the very thin tail. Another clue to identification of an Eastern Tailed Blue is the orange chevrons on both the upper and lower sides of the hind wings near the tails.

Mating Eastern Tailed Blues will result in caterpillars that depend on legumes including cow vetch, clover, and alfalfa as their host plants. That may explain why I see these Blues so often fluttering just above my grass. A lot of that grass is actually clover.

During a year Eastern Tailed Blues usually have three broods The last brood of the year will overwinter as mature larvae in seed pods.

The native range of Eastern Tailed Blues is most of United States and southern Canada. It’s quite plentiful here in the east. Wonderful to know what species each of these amazing winged creatures is!