September's Dancing Butterflies

     Alfalfa fields and red clover fields gone to flower late in September in southeastern Pennsylvania shimmer with thousands of dancing clouded sulphur butterflies.  They visit the lavender blooms of alfalfa and the pink ones of red clover to sip nectar, making those hay fields lively in September.  Like fireflies, cabbage white butterflies, true katydids and other kinds of common insects in this area, clouded sulphurs, also known as common sulphurs, are quite successful.
     Pale-yellow with two-inch wing spans, the abundant clouded sulphurs are pleasing and inspiring to see flying low and fast over the green foliage of hay plants and their innumerable, lovely blooms.  And many more of these fluttering butterflies are in those pretty hay fields late in September than there had been all summer.  The attractive flowers and butterflies together add much beauty to the farmland of southeastern Pennsylvania at that time.
     Clouded sulphurs are common across the United States, in western Canada and much of Alaska.  And there probably are far more of these butterflies today in North America than ever before because of the vast acreages of human-made fields here.  Common sulphur larvae eat alfalfa, red clover, white clover and soybean leaves, all of which are abundant, alien plants in North America.   
     Several broods of common sulphur larvae hatch each year, which is why their numbers build up by late September.  Those caterpillars are green to blend into their surroundings of green plants.  But each larvae has a white stripe along both sides.  The larvae are somewhat sheltered in hay fields, but hay cutting probably kills some caterpillars and pupae.  And some larvae and/or butterflies are eaten by a variety of field birds, dragonflies, preying mantises, spiders, skunks, toads and other predatory creatures.  But if it matures, each caterpillar forms a green chrysalis, again for camouflage, on a plant.  There the larva changes to a butterfly.  But pupae left in the cold of late fall over-winter, and the butterflies emerge early the next spring, ready to nectar on flowers and reproduce themselves.  
     Happily, clouded sulphur butterflies also sip nectar from other kinds of lovely blooms, to a lesser extent.  Those handsome flowers include any of the asters with white, pale-lavender or deep-purple blossoms, depending on the species.  And common sulphurs visit goldenrod in upland fields and bur-marigolds in moist soil, both of which have yellow flowers.  And, along with various kinds of bees, other species of butterflies and other types of insects, clouded sulphurs pollinate the flowers they sip nectar from.       
     Interestingly, clouded sulphurs, like cabbage white butterflies, various swallowtail butterflies and other butterfly species, gather on bare mud and animal poop, and shallow puddles to draw moisture and minerals up their straw-like mouths, elements they can't get from flowers.  Sometimes mixed gangs of colorful, fluttering butterflies are on mud, droppings or shallow water at once.
     The humble, mostly overlooked clouded sulphur butterflies adapted well to the vast acreages of hay field blossoms to sip nectar.  And their caterpillars consume alfalfa and clover plants before pupating and changing to butterflies.  Many species of life have adapted to human-made habitats and activities.  And, I think, many more will.  They are the species with futures on this planet.