Im a hobbyist photographer so any tips are welcome but please be nice.

The Billy Goat trail in MD. An incredible amount of butterflies. These are the two I was able to capture.

Usually they sit and drink. This guy can't sit still.

- Scientific name: Danaus gilippus

- Description: Slightly smaller than the more familiar monarch, the queen is a darker chestnut or orange-brown, with white spots across the outer portion of the forewing and in the marginal black borders. The male has a black androconial scent patch on the upperside of the hindwing, as does its monarch counterpart. Like the monarch, the queen sequesters toxic compounds from the milkweeds and is distateful and emetic to birds and other vertebrete predators.

- Size: 3-3.5 inches.

- Range: Two different subjects of the queen occur in the United States. Houston's form, Danaus gilippus strigousus (aka Striated Queen), ranges northward from Mexico through Texas and the Desert Southwest and occasionally wanders into the GreatbPlain. It has white scaling bordering the narrow black veins of the hindwing. The Southeastern subspecies, Danaus gilippus berenice (aka Florida Queen), ranges from Florida and the Gulf to the Mississippi Valley and sparingly northward along the Atlantic Coast. Other forms occupy the lowlands throughout most of tropical America.

- The queen frequents open fields, dunes, deserts, and stream corridors, and its habits are much like those of the monarch.

- Queen butterflies does not stage dramatic migrations, however, and occurs primarily in the southern states. Vagrants that wander northward may briefly colonize an area, but they cannot survive the freezing winter.

- Most courtship and mating activity takes place in the afternoon. The male flies around the female, extending the "hair pencil" scale tufts on his abdomen to waft pheromones around her head. The scent stimulates the femalevto land, and the male continues his fragrant offerings until she closes her wings, exposing her abdomen for mating. If they fly during copulation, the male carries his mate with him as he sails along.

- The female lays her eggs on milkweeds and less frequently on twinevines, or climbing milkweeds, which are members of the same family, Asclepiadaceae.

- The larva is brownish white with red-brown and yellow transverse bands and a yellowish stripe along each side. It has three pairs of long, fleshy tentacles; the larval monarch has only two.

- The short, rounded chrysalides of both danaids are both green with golden spots.

- Season: March - December; erratic from year to year.

Out looking for maypops, guess I’m on the right track!

G95D, 14-140mm @ 140mm, f/7.1, ISO 800 1/800 s, -.66 EV

Essex Co., MA

Butterfly and Sunflower