Category Archives: butterfly fields

Early Summer Field Flowers

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Our calendars say summer is still a few days away but according to the meteorologists the meteorological summer began on June 1 and it sure has been feeling and looking like summer here on Cape Cod already.

I’ve been out in fields and meadows a lot lately so thought I’d share some of my field flower  photos.

Yarrow is always easy to spot. Some of it is yellow and some is pink but so far all I’ve seen is the white variety.

Indigo is just coming into bloom and is very common in our fields and along roadsides.

If you look at it closely you can see it is related to the peas.

You might also see sweet pea–but it is not a wildflower, just an escapee…

Several kinds of clover are in bloom, including the common white clover we have in our yards

And there is also the pretty pink or red clover as well as the fuzzy rabbit foot clover…

And of course everyone’s favorite–including the Monarch butterfly’s–the milkweed…

I’ll post more over the week but these are all in bloom right now and easy to find.

It’s Butterfly Time!

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Butterflies love it to be hot but not too hot. A little breeze is okay but too  much wind will toss them around so a calm day is always their preference. Humidity is acceptable up to a point but a good dry day in the 80s is probably their favorite kind of day. Oh, and don’t forget that lots of flowers should be in bloom. Mid July is usually the best time to find that around here and sure enough, these past few days have been perfect.

If you want to see lots of butterflies head for a place that looks like this….

With lots of these….

and these….

and mixes like these….

then you might find some of these….

These pictures were taken on the Butterfly Mosaic Trail at Mass Audubon’s Long Pasture Sanctuary in Cummaquid but any good sized field will do. In the Falmouth area there is the amazing Crane Wildlife Area that I personally think is the best butterfly place on the Cape but there is also the air field in Marstons Mills, the Drummer Boy Park in Brewster, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and Fort Hill in Eastham to name a few more. Truro has some very fertile areas as well. All should be very busy over the next week or so with many varieties of butterflies.

Over the next few days I will be posting pictures and information about some of the more common butterflies here on the Cape, including their host plants for both nectaring adults and feeding larvae.