On Sunday, Mary and I took a drive up to Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park, with two destinations: first, I wanted to show her Lewis Falls, and second, I wanted to show her the view from the little Black Rock summit near the lodge. More about the adventures to follow - in fact, I have an "easy day hike" post in arrears on this hike that I have yet to post, from a trip back in June.
It turned out to be a kind of special day for another reason - the meadow is busting out all over with summer wildflowers, and hand in hand with that, there are all kinds of butterflies to be seen. I don't think I've ever seen the variety and numbers of butterflies we encountered Sunday, starting with this Monarch catepillar that we saw near the welcome center.
After we noticed it, I saw a few leaflets posted around that this is the season to see the three out of the four life-cycle phases of the Monarch in the Park - from catepillar, to pupa, to butterfly - the only one you miss, and this is because you don't know what to look for, probably, is larva.
Although I only managed to capture two decent phone cam images - the tiger swallowtail below, and the great spangled fritillary, left - among the others we saw were monarchs, painted ladies, black swallowtails, and west virginia whites. These are just the ones that we were close enough to identify, since the whole meadow was alive with them.
We had seen so many varieties that I was worried about forgetting some of them. So when we got home, I rushed to my "Virginia Butterflies and Moths" pocket naturalist guide and jotted down the ones I could remember seeing. I forgot about the summer meadow ecosystem in the Park - this is a great outing, and since it's often 10 or more degrees cooler up there than in the Valley, doubly enjoyable.
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