It seemed like the butterflies arrived late this year, but they are definitely here in force now! I think it may be the best year for butterflies in the garden so far.

These Tawny Emperors are regular visitors.

As are these Hackberry Emperors. They are very close the Tawnies, just more brown than orange.

Speaking of orange, the above Pearl Crescent is only distinguishable from the Northern Crescent by the lighter patches.

The Northern Crescents are nice and bright orange.

It always takes a while for the Skippers to arrive, but arrive they have! Above and below is the same Fiery Skipper.

They look so neat from different angles.

This one is a Silver Spotted Skipper.

They don’t often open their wings when feeding (at least that I’ve seen) but managed to capture it.

And I was thrilled to capture this one in better shape than the last time!

Eastern Black Swallowtails are definitely one of my favourite butterflies.

This Red Admiral was in beautiful shape. I’ve been seeing a lot of them this year. I always considered them a more early season butterfly, but not this year!

These tiny Sootywings are new to the garden this year, but we’ve seen them several times! I’ve since learned that Celosia are among their host plants. I love Celosia and always have it in the garden now, so that’s probably why I’m seeing them.

And speaking of host plants…

I’ve discovered that my Honeysuckle is the host plant for this guy… the Snowberry Clearwing Moth caterpillar. He’s going to turn into one of my favourite visitors to the garden!…

These super cool guys!

I just love that my garden is part of the ecosystem!