A Swarm Of Painted Ladies

Like monarchs, which they resemble, painted lady butterflies are migratory, heading to the Desert Southwest for the winter.  In the autumn of 2017, their swarms were peculiarly large along the Colorado Front Range and, this March, the migrating ladies created a spectacle inwards Southern California, the effect of a massive desert flower that was triggered past times heavy wintertime rains inwards that region.

Early this evening, when I went out to expect for novel summertime birds on our Littleton farm, my search was disrupted past times the steady crusade of painted ladies across the landscape.  Moving from southwest to northeast, these fast flight butterflies (capable of reaching 25 mph) constantly caught my eye.  Within a one-half hour, I'm sure I saw at to the lowest degree G of the hardy migrants, anxious to accomplish their breeding sites.

Preferring to reach their eggs on thistles too related plants, painted ladies employ almost habitats inwards Colorado too may hold upwards observed throughout the warmer months.  However, it is inwards mid throttle too early on autumn when their volume migrations may grab the substance of fifty-fifty the to the lowest degree attentive observers of nature.  This evening's spectacle volition for sure hold upwards long remembered past times this naturalist.