Butterflies feasting on butterfly weed

[Bayard]

[Duppers]

1. Wow! Beautiful!

Cross-post this in the photography forum - it's so worthy.

[lunatica]

2. It looks like an Impressionist painting

It’s a feast for the eyes!

[Girard442]

3. They love those asclepias. If butterflies ran the world it'd probably be a controlled substance.

[Butterflylady]

4. That's AWESOME!

[japple]

5. Love it!!! We have milkweeds that were planted by my mother in 1980s plus newer ones that

I planted a few years ago. We are planting more and more natives every year in hopes that the pollinators will somehow survive. I have seen fewer and fewer butterflies in an area where they used to thrive. It is because of pesticide drift from farms in the area and pollution from the industrial chicken operations that have moved in in the last few years. I did get a somewhat decent picture of a swallowtail on my butterfly weed last month, but I haven't uploaded it to a sharing service. Your photo is awesome. Do you know if those are Gulf Fritillaries? We had so many last year and I haven't seen a one this year.

[Bayard]

6. I think they're Fritillaries, but don't know about Gulf variety

I'm in KY.

I was able to transplant a couple of butterfly weeds from our pasture, into the garden.

Have not seen a single Monarch this year, but my zinias aren't blooming yet.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. Thanks for sharing. So peaceful.

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[Botany]

8. That is nectaring the real feasting aka is when the monarch caterpillar feeds on the leaves in ....

.... order to get the milkweed chemical. Cardiac glycoside