![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/variegated-fritillary-gaillardia.jpg\" "\\"variegated-fritillary-gaillardia\\"")
<\/a>Variegated Fritillary, Euptoita claudia<\/strong>, on Gaillardia<\/em><\/p>\nThe gaillardia were already past peak on May 30, and are even less obvious this week, though not all the seeds are ripe.<\/p>\n
The Maximilian sunflower mounds are already knee high–this large multi-flowered sunflower won’t bloom until August or September, when it’ll send up multiple stalks, each covered with flowers.\u00a0 But I love the architectural leaf patterns, and this time a little red “ladybug” showed up against the green.<\/p>\n Shortly before sundown on May 30, I was walking back along a mowed path through the prairie, accompanied by abundant little white moths.\u00a0 This one let me get close enough for a picture–love the plumy antennae:<\/p>\n A few more yards, and I came upon a coreopsis plant that had plain yellow ray flowers, rather than marked with mahogany near the disk, and quickly took a picture.\u00a0 Too quickly–I failed to notice the three different tiny insects on it until I got the image into the computer.\u00a0 You can’t ID what you don’t have in focus!<\/p>\n This weekend’s expedition started out with a saving throw–a little moth fluttered down from the back door just as I started out.\u00a0\u00a0 It landed on the back step and I knew right away it was a species not yet on our list.<\/p>\n This is a “Connubial Underwing” and I must say that the scientist(s) who named moths\u00a0 in this genus had a fixation on women and marriage.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Take a look at the list of species names.<\/a> Though the ID was confirmed by a member of the Texas Lepidoptera Survey, I’m pleased that I was able to narrow down the many-many possibilities to the right one.\u00a0 And not only is it new to our<\/em> list, but it’s not been reported before in this county.\u00a0\u00a0 On his recommendation, I’ve shipped the images off to the national database at Butterflies and Moths of North America<\/a> as an addition to the county checklist.<\/p>\n After that, almost anything I saw out in the field was gravy.\u00a0\u00a0 We still have a lot of basketflowers (more than last year, thanks to the winter rains, and in more places than they used to exist on this property–thank you,\u00a0 seed-eating birds!) and lemon horsemint; gaillardias are mostly gone but not entirely.\u00a0 What really caught my eye were the number of Brown-eyed Susans,\u00a0 Rudbeckia hirta<\/em>.\u00a0 The first years we owned the place, I was delighted to see a few clumps here and there.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some years there’ve been hardly any.\u00a0 But now they’re in the Entrance Meadow, a few in the West Grass, more in the Northwest Meadow, and in the Southwest Meadow:<\/p>\n This long drift along the edge of the west woods is on the line of an overflow channel with the creek floods, but the meadow itself was full of them as well.<\/p>\n In the lower picture, a different view across the meadow with Lemon Horsemint (purplish stalks),\u00a0 Gaillardia (bits of red\/orange, center) and Brown-eyed Susan–the meadow in full bloom, shimmering under a hot (upper 90sF) midday sun.<\/p>\n Where the plants form particularly dense drifts along the edges of the meadow, tiny butterflies were flitting quickly along from one to another.<\/p>\n I was lucky to spot this one and get a half-decent grab shot of it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Brown-eyed Susan is also a favorite of other insects, such as grasshopper instars:<\/p>\n Another important native-plant increaser on the place are the gentian-family “pinks”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I didn’t find Meadow Pink (Sabatia campestris<\/em>) this year–probably due to the dry spring–but the dryland pink-flowered gentians have continued to increase.\u00a0 I think we have both local species–Lady Bird’s Centaury, Centaurium texense<\/em>,\u00a0 and Rosita, Centaurium calycosum<\/em>, but I’m not sure–to me, the pictures at the Wildflower Center’s plant database site look very much alike.\u00a0 The plants do have two forms, one I think looks like a nosegay, with a very rounded head of rosy pink flowers:<\/p>\n<\/a>Ladybird beetle on Maximilian sunflower leaves<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Lychnosea intermicata<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Missed opportunities, on all-yellow Coreopsis<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Catocala connubialis <\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Rudbeckia hirta in NW meadow<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Pearl Crescent on Brown-eyed Susan<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n