Angelkeep could be considered Christmas-blessed every day of the year. Santa can take no credit for creating and gifting the daily abundance of nature that excites the senses throughout the entire year. Only the Creator could continue to bring on the unexpected.
Such again became the case when a late season butterfly emerged on the flowers potted at the far end of the patio. The arrival, so perfectly timed, involved a human sitting on a patio rocker at the very time the airborne visitor appeared.
Certain factors added to the excitement of the fall encounter. The summer had been nearly void of butterfly happenstances. No large butterfly had been digitally captured. This rarity certainly wasn’t the norm for Angelkeep. Large swallowtails of at least three varieties and colors had been spotted. Short chases resulted in zero pics. Posed landings never occurred. At least none witnessed by a human.
To zoom in on a swallowtail with a camera to the point of seeing individual scales of the colorful designs is unique. It’s exciting. It’s magnificent. In 2024 it simply didn’t happen.
Cloudless Sulphur arrived. It was considered a medium size butterfly, but on the larger end of the middle gamut. It circled like an aircraft awaiting permission to land at the airport. It chose the whiskey barrel planter filled with red impatiens as its destination. It appeared to enjoy the fast food found freely in the depths of the blooms’ throats.
It was recognized only as a yellow butterfly, the largest landed this year at Angelkeep. The yellow appeared bold. Once it had been researched, a name emerged. Lust for red blooms had also been learned among the descriptions. Its extraordinarily long proboscis, or tongue, had been noted by those describing this unusual butterfly.
So many unique features on one single butterfly truly made it the winged gift of the year. It seemed appropriate to save it as an Angelkeep Journals’ feature for the holiday gift-giving season. Thus Angelkeep presents its newest yellow fluttering friend ten days prior to winter, and with only a dozen more shopping days remaining.
In size it averaged about the wingspan of a human adult finger, 2-3”. The color mimicked a ripe banana. Females differ from males due to a small darker marking near the center of each forward wing. Angelkeep had been visited by one such female.
Angelkeep’s butterfly flew off once the camera focused on the bloom of which the yellow visitor chose to obtain a healthy slurp. One could not miss the exotically long tongue uncurling deep into the bloom’s throat. The butterfly drank quickly and fluttered off. It circled an area of about thirty feet. It returned to another blossom. Another set of photos were obtained. The circling and return continued for a number of visits, like a continuous line at a drive-thru window.
The scientific name, Phoebis sennae, referred to Phoebe the sister of Apollo, a god of Greek and Roman mythology. It again seemed Christmastime appropriate when the internet provided a photo of this butterfly’s egg which looked very much like a yellow-orange LED Christmas bulb on a strand of tree lights. The pupa stage continued the Christmas theme. Pupas come in varieties of green or a rosy pink which looks an adequate shade of subdued Christmas red.
Don’t forget, this butterfly has a significant inclination to dine only on bright red flowers. Ho, ho, ho. They crave red so much some have been seen flying directly into red automobile taillight lenses. Oh, oh, oh.
That doesn’t seem terribly smart, but this butterfly is intelligent enough to select yellow blooming plants when desiring to simply stop for a rest. They seem to understand camouflage.
The late sighting of Cloudless Sulphur truly had been a gift. Although they can appear near Canada, after the breeding season they migrate to the low southern part of the country. Angelkeep’s visitor may have been grabbing a drink from the red Angelkeep flowers during a quick stop while in route to Gainesville, Florida. Or even Mexico.
Sightings in northern United States diminish. Cloudless Sulphur’s visit truly may have been an Angelkeep butterfly gift of a lifetime.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
