
A Red Admiral butterfly, who paused for a moment amongst a few fallen leaves in the bosque today.
A Red Admiral butterfly, who paused for a moment amongst a few fallen leaves in the bosque today.
A trio of butterflies that aren’t supposed to be in New Mexico in November: Two western pygmy blues on the left and an acmon blue (I think) on top.
It looks a lot like a Painted Lady but it’s smaller and has those four shimmery blue dots on each wing. I haven’t seen them in the Sandia mountains before this summer.
I won’t absolutely swear to it but I believe this butterfly is called a Greenish Blue.It is definitely a blue of one kind or another.
The population of painted lady butterflies has exploded over the last couple of weeks in and around Albuquerque. They are everywhere — in the valley, foothills, and even east mountains.
Last week a coworker (who knows I love butterflies) asked me, “Do you know much about insects?” I said I didn’t really and he went on to say, “There’s a moth I’ve been seeing … it looks like a hummingbird.” I said, “Oh, yeah — it’s a hummingbird moth.” I think he honestly didn’t believe me but I showed him a photo on Google that was labeled “hummingbird moth.” There have been a lot of them around lately.