Fall Colors - Yellow Crownbeard, Painted Lady et al.

Carolina autumn brings brilliant blue skies and golden petals all around. Today, Yellow Crownbeard stretches forth to mingle with her nectar drinking minions.

 

 

Golden petals reflect golden rays and nectar lovers flock to the fountain.

Painted Lady pauses for a nip of nectar, cavorting casually 'cross autumn's canvas.

Does Skipper sense winter's impending embrace? Flitting from crown to crown, she makes the most of today's golden bounty.

 

Buckeye's ragged raiment slows but little the persistent pursuit of nourishment.

Beautiful Lady, brilliant blossoms.  Someone's watching...

Tattered Wings, The Nature of Beauty

Tattered wings, what became of thy beauty,
when the thistle browned, and her seed all went a-sailing?

Tattered wings, what became of thy beauty,

                     when the aster drooped, and her nectar stopped its flowing?

 Oh, tattered wings, what became of thy beauty,
when the days grew short, and chilly came the gloaming?

Is beauty a mere trinket to be lost?
Fleeting, ephemeral, like thy tattered wings of orange?

Or is it, perhaps, something more?
Essential, everlasting, like the breath which lofts you t'ward the heavens?

Be not bothered by these foolish questions, nameless beauty;
they're merely the musings of a wingless, earthbound mortal.

Fly on, tattered wings. Fly on.

Eye Spy the Butterfly

The greenbrier leaves have lost some lustre. Glossy green gives way to yellow and brown. Summer winds down. Spots play games with the eyes. 

The mantis meditates, motionless 'midst the green and brown and yellow, one with its milieu...

Some sources say its raptor's spikes can strike twice in the blink of an eye.

Fly, Buckeye, fly!

Cerulean Silhouettes - September Blues

Helios approaches... chariot laden with its shimmering orb, each day's journey shorter than the last. Radiant rays refracted, skittering askew, a brilliant tar heel blue, framing snapshots of summer's demise,  as Persephone ponders her pending farewell...

Tattered tiger, frozen in flight...

A moment's rest; then southward, we sail the azure sea...

'Neath the weary vine

Omnivorous folk rejoice
Sweet muscadines fall

Have You Noticed the Butter-Colored Flies?

Flutterby?

                                    Animagus with a taste for Butter?

Zuni Harbinger of Sunny Weather?

Milk  Thief?

                                                                               Butter-coloured Fly?

Sulphur?
                                                                     Orange?
                                                                                                                                         White?

Today the traveler spied two yellow butterflies. Ubiquitous August ephemera, flitting about unseen amidst the visual white noise of summer; brief lives passing unnoticed in the cacophony of color and shimmering heat waves of the highways and parking lots.

A thousand generations of cabbage whites and cloudless sulphurs have traversed this land; planting the seed of a thousand more among the radishes and clover.

Are there fewer this year than last, or haven't we noticed?

Butterfly link:http://www.ncmls.org/exhibits/magic-wings-butterfly-house