Spreadwing Skipper family Hesperiidae

Somewhere between butterflies and moths flies the skipper. These are Silver-Spotted Skippers, Epargyreus clarus (not to be confused with the rare silver-spotted skipper of the UK, Hesperia comma).

The males perch on low branches, looking hairy and handsome. This one repeatedly swooped away from and returned to the same shoot, fraternizing in a mad whirl, while aloft, with another of its ilk, and occasionally divebombing my head. One assumes that a butterfly flits noiselessly to and fro, but this specimen made alarming buzzing noises and had about it the air of someone on a mission of extreme urgency. After 20 minutes uninterrupted observation in 98-degree heat, the somewhat sweaty Twisty Lepidoptera Department, rightly or wrongly, advanced the hypothesis that this skipper was totally on the make.

Photos August 2004