Mike in the Wild

Throughout the seasons, you're guaranteed to spot an abundant variety of butterflies across Arizona's wide and diverse landscape.  But you don't have to brave extreme temperatures and rugged terrain to see some of the local stars of this colorful insect family.  You only have to visit the autumn exhibit in the Butterfly Pavilion at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.    Within just a few thousand square feet, the protected shelter houses almost a dozen species of native butterflies at any given time.  They flutter amid and feed upon a number of cultivated plants and flowers, along with plates of fresh fruit.  A path meanders one-way through the greenhouse-like garden, assuring some human safety during the COVID pandemic.   Butterflies, moths, and skimmers are all in the same order of insects, taxonomically known as lepidoptera.   Worldwide, scientists count over 200,000 species in this grouping!  (In comparison, there are only 1...

Hiking, mountain biking, running, birding, horseback riding: Prescott's trail system offers countless pathways for many outdoor pastimes.  While I don't use my rickety bike much anymore, or ever saddle up a horse, I regularly partake in all the other activities.  But I discovered a new pastime on these paths over the past weekend: butterfly watching. The City of Prescott, Prescott National Forest and Yavapai Trails Association have teamed up to create and maintain this network of trails for easy and free non-motorized recreational use by both residents and visitors.   There are lots of ways to enter the mostly forested and mountainous spaces - at least that's the way they are in my far west side neighborhood of Kingswood - with Trail 317 being the most convenient to me.   The trail is descriptively known as Ridge Top and it quickly connects to other footpaths that lead directly to Thumb Butte - the iconic mountain landmark that appears on many Prescott ...

Like many people, at first glance I often confuse a unique but wide-ranging moth with a hummingbird.  Ornamental flowers are an irresistible source of nectar for both winged creatures and both buzz and hover as they feed.   But the similarities might end there. The white-lined sphinx is in the class of animals separate from birds known as insects, and in an order with butterflies and moths called lepidoptera.  But because of its unique acrobatics it's known familiarly as the hummingbird moth.  Another striking difference between the sphinx and the hummingbird is that this particular species seems to readily tolerate a photographer while it dines on the sweet bounty of a Prescott, Arizona flower garden.

You can't spend any time outdoors birding without running into butterflies.  While easy to spot, and even approach, getting one to stay still for a good photograph presents a rewarding challenge. Enthusiastically learning about birds and their many species, I've not made a similar effort with butterflies.  One reason for that is the sheer number of varieties that exist.  While the animal class of birds or aves include almost 10,000 species worldwide - much lower in Arizona - butterflies are in a single order of the insect class that include closer to 200,000 species!  This order is  lepidoptera , and includes several families of insects like butterflies along with their cousins the moths and skimmers. While fun to see and photograph, I'll only occasionally put the time into researching them.  Here are several Arizona species I've been able to meet in the last year.  Some are not identified - I'll leave that to my  lepidopterist friends! P...