Butterfly Week

The summer season is short here. You can see the changes in things from day to day. This week, it’s the butterfly’s time.

Up at the top of Mont Royal, it was a hot and very very humid day. The butterflies didn’t seem to mind. Near one of the telecommunications towers, Black swallowtails (Papilo polyxenes) fluttered around.

Nearby, at the base of the giant electric cross that provides a nightly visual symbol of Québec’s commitment to a secular society, there is a mass of Sorbaria (also known as “false spiraea” or “false goat’s beard”). It’s evidently an introduced species, but that doesn’t stop it from being very attractive to the native butterflies! It was seething with Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) and bees of all kinds.

These butterflies are just so photogenic! The back of their wings, with the brown/red-orange/white motif is striking, but the underside of the wing is filled with a hypnotic range of subtle colors and swirling patterns. It made me wish I had brought a macro lens with me.

The butterflies aren’t just up in the rarified cool mountaintop air of Mont Royal. I encountered more Red Admirals lakeside in Parc La Fontaine or among the coneflowers along Rue Beaubien.

Butterfly Week will likely last more than a week, but having watched tulips and daffodils and irises and lilies all bloom in great profusion and then vanish quickly, I’m not making any assumptions.

When it comes to vanishing quickly, there’s another bug that sadly is increasing over time and being encountered in more and more areas. The (relatively) warmer winters are allowing the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) to expand their range. With any luck, there will be no postings here about tick Week.