If you were out and about this weekend you might have wondered, as I did, about all the butterflies in the air. Were they Monarchs? Too small. Were they Oak Moths? Too colorful. A closer look through binoculars revealed a compact orange and black butterfly with white dots on the upper wing tips and double rows of black dots below. While we don’t have a lepidopterist on staff, a quick trip to the non-fiction stacks provided me with the answer. According to Bob Stewart’s Common Butterflies of California, these small black and orange butterflies are Painted Ladies - the most common butterfly in the world. In Butterflies through binoculars: the West, Jeffrey Glassberg explains that Painted Ladies “stream out of northern Mexico during March and April in often impressive swarms to repopulate the West.” Impressive indeed! For more information about the world around you, visit the Library.

Flickr photo credit: Painted Lady 2 by Marko_K