We are pleased to announce the winner of our most recent Monday Nature Mystery, Mary K Alexander! (Please email your snail mail address and preference for a hat or tote bag to [email protected]).
Congratulations to Mary for identifying the Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele). According to the US Forest Service, like many other butterflies, the Great Spangled Fritillary’s caterpillars are very selective about what they eat. They do not go for milkweeds as do monarchs; they prefer violets instead. Without violets, there would be no fritillaries. The adults, on the other hand are thirsty for nectar of many native flowers, such as mints, butterfly weed, common milkweed, Joe-pye-weed and others; but they do not hesitate to visit some non-native flowers such as lilacs, butterfly bush and some thistles. In general they prefer long tubular flowers, but they can also use some easy to reach, more open flowers.
Last Week's Mystery: Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) Photo: Judy Gallagher
Each Monday we’ll post a new photo and identify the previous week’s winner. They’ll receive an NVBA hat or tote bag.
Be sure to post your answer on our Facebook page @NVBirdAlliance under the Monday Mystery post...do not reply to this email with your guess! We only accept entries from our Facebook page, not via email.
Please remember to write the common name, being mindful of hyphens, uppercase and lowercase letters and always include the Latin name in parentheses. To learn more about bird names click here.
Who is this? Photo: Judy Gallagher
This week’s Mystery: Who is this?
Post your guess (please list both common name and Latin name) on our Facebook page @NVBirdAlliance under this week's Monday Nature Mystery. Remember, we only accept entries from our Facebook page, not via email!
Good luck!
-Northern Virginia Bird Alliance
Please note that we only accept entries on our Facebook page where they are date- and time-stamped. Remember that, if you need to correct your entry, you should make a new posting instead of correcting the old one so that we get a correct time stamp for your correction. Winners are limited to one prize every 90 days, maximum 2 per person. If you have already won twice, please let newer people have a chance and refrain from answering first.
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