Butterflies

One of my favorite photography subjects is butterflies. In the line of butterfly photography, I have identified over forty different species of butterfly on our little seven acres alone! I haven't gotten pictures of all of these, but certainly many of them. Below are many of the different kinds we have.

Tiger Swallowtail

(Quite difficult to photograph. Very flitty and generally high-flying)

Snout Butterfly

(Very funny looking! I have only seen one or two of these little guys)

Red-Banded Hairstreak

(Only seen one. Quite small, difficult to find)

Monarch

(Rather common, especially during the late summer and early fall)

Mourning Cloak

(Also very tricky to photograph, but very beautiful. Generally shows up in early spring and then disappears)

Pearly Crescentspot

(VERY common, but rather cute)

Question Mark

(Raised this one from a caterpillar. Beautiful, but common)

Large Wood Nymph

(Very flitty and fast, but beautiful)

Labrador Sulfur

(Pretty common)

King's Hairstreak

(Seen very few of these. Also small, yet beautiful)

Hobomok Skipper

(Skippers are fun, but tricky, to photograph)

Grey Hairstreak

(This is a favorite photo of mine)

Great Spangled Fritillary

(These butterflies are incredibly common. We get literally hundreds of these butterflies during the summer)

Great Purple Hairstreak

(Saw this one while mowing the lawn. Never seen another one)

Golden Skipper

(He really is different than the Hobomok Skipper above! Skippers are very hard to identify)

Eastern Tailed Blue

(Also a member of the Hairstreak family. Very small, yet pretty)

Cabbage Butterfly

(Very common. There are people who dislike these butterflies very strongly because of the damage their caterpillars can do to garden plants)

Black Swallowtail

(Gorgeous butterflies, and pretty common. I raised this one from a caterpillar)

Zebra Swallowtail

(My all-time favorite. They are so hard to photograph, but so beautiful)

We certainly live in a wonderful place for observing a myriad of butterfly specimen. They are beautiful creatures, and their life is such a model of ours. Like the Cabbage Butterfly, we start out as nasty, wretched, harmful worms: "But I am a worm and not a man" (Psalm 22:6). But God works a marvelous metamorphosis in us, transforming us into beautiful butterflies in Christ Jesus:  "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:20-21).