Pic(k) of the Week: Passion on the blossom

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A summer treat: a passion butterfly sips sweet nectar from a Texas lantana flower.

Avondale Estates, Georgia, USA.
9 August 2026.

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🐤 Fauna:

Dione vanillae (synonym: Agraulis vanillae) — commonly known as Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly — is a bright orange butterfly in the subfamily Heliconiinae of the family Nymphalidae. The Heliconiinae are 'longwing butterflies,' with longer, narrower wings than those of other butterflies.

Gulf fritillaries are found primarily in the southern parts of the contiguous United States, from Florida and Georgia to Texas and California, in open habitats near open grasslands, parks, and woodlands.

In its adult form, the gulf fritillary is a medium-sized butterfly with extended forewings and a wingspan of 2½ to 3¾ inches (6½ to 9½ cm). The underside of the wings is brown and speckled with silvery white dots. In contrast, the top surface layer of the wings is deep orange, with black streaks running across.

— Wikipedia.

❀ Flora:

Lantana urticoides — commonly known as Texas lantana or calico bush — is a three- to five-foot (0.9 to 1.5 m) perennial flowering shrub within the verbena family (Verbenaceae), that grows in Mexico and the southeastern U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, especially along the Gulf coast.

Flowers are colorful red, orange, and yellow small tubes with four flared lobes; in dense, rounded clusters with a leafy bract [specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure] subtending each flower, at the ends of peduncles [long paired stems] usually extending beyond the leaves, appearing from April to October.

— Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
— Wikipedia.

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Cannonball Adderly: Poor Butterfly

-----more-----

• Album: Cannonball Takes Charge
  Label: Riverside (1959)
  
• Musicians:
  
  • Cannonball Adderly - alto saxophone, leader
  • Wynton Kelly - piano
  • Percy Heath - bass
  • Albert "Tootie" Heath - drums

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• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays.
• Photo 34 of 52, for year 2026. See a larger, hi-res version on Flickr: here.


• Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.
• Lens: Olympus M.40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R
• Settings: 125 mm | 1/640 sec | ƒ/5.6 | ISO 400.
• Edit: Photoshop Elements 15, Nik Collection (2016).


• Image licensed via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Reproduction permitted, but with these provisos:
  • only in unadapted form
  • attribution required (e.g., Cizauskas on Flickr)
  • commercial use forbidden except with explicit permission.
  
  
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