Cloudless Sulphur -FOY female- (Phoebis sennae) Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia
This First-of-Year female turned out to be the one and only this year. I spotted her laying eggs on Senna, her host plant and afterwards she rested briefly on this Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) close to the ground where she was almost invisible among the fallen brown leaves. Notice the palps and her eye being half yellow and half brown.
Cloudless Sulphurs are usually fall migrants arriving from the south in late summer. In the past couple of years however, they started to overwinter in the Washington area showing up in early spring, but this year they were notably missing in spring after we had an unusually cold winter. They also did not seem to undertake their usual fall migration north as in the past. I saw only one male zipping by in Washington DC. (males are pale lemony green so it is possible to distinguish them from females even in flight)
Cloudless Sulphur -FOY female- (Phoebis sennae) Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia
This First-of-Year female turned out to be the one and only this year. I spotted her laying eggs on Senna, her host plant and afterwards she rested briefly on this Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) close to the ground where she was almost invisible among the fallen brown leaves. Notice the palps and her eye being half yellow and half brown.
Cloudless Sulphurs are usually fall migrants arriving from the south in late summer. In the past couple of years however, they started to overwinter in the Washington area showing up in early spring, but this year they were notably missing in spring after we had an unusually cold winter. They also did not seem to undertake their usual fall migration north as in the past. I saw only one male zipping by in Washington DC. (males are pale lemony green so it is possible to distinguish them from females even in flight)