Arboretum Butterfly
25 July
Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterfly in the Morgan Arboretum. These butterflies are one of the most widespread of all butterflies, found on every continent except Antarctica and South America. This one, alongside a Bumble Bee, was nectaring on thistle flowers beside the Canada 150 Trail in the Arboretum. This trail was created by volunteers during 2017 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada.
This is the “Birch Alley” on the Canada 150 Trail. Fifty years before a professor and students from McGill University spent a summer visiting every one of the Canadian provinces and returned with saplings of birch trees which were planted along this forest ride. Over the years they had become rather neglected but the trail creation brought them back to light.
Beautiful! We are seeing a lot more butterflies this year, in our west Ottawa suburb. We think we saw a Spicebush Swallowtail on our Coneflower. Could that be? Our book says Eastern US and extreme southern Ontario, but it's old. We couldn't take a photo. I think we also had a Little Wood Satyr.
I love Painted Ladies! One year a few years ago now we had a huge influx of them in Edinburgh around Autumn, many more than normal were migrating that year.