Being outdoors is rejuvenating, but it may also create a memory that remains with us for the rest of our lives. Taking the living scene to the photography screen brought to light what had escaped my eye.
It all began one day in mid-August, when I saw large dabs of butter fluttering through the yard toward the trumpet vine.
The vine was exploding with blooms. Stepping outside, I realized the butterflies were folding their wings and crawling into the large trumpet-shaped corollas. But the eye-opener came when I brought the photos up on the large monitor. Questions began to form. And that is where this story really begins: with the discoveries hidden within the encounter.
These large canary-yellow butterflies are part of a group of butterflies called sulphurs. Female cloudless sulphurs have dark markings along the outer edges of the wings and spots on the forewings. Males are mostly unmarked on the dorsal, or upper surface, of the wings.
The butterflies took turns reaching for the nectar inside the trumpet-like blooms. They carefully folded their delicate wings and inched themselves farther into the bloom.
Then they paused, and all I could see was the trailing edge of the wings.
Against the dark background, the butterfly’s six delicate white legs stand out. Butterflies have sensory structures on the tarsus, the part of the leg that touches a surface. When they land on a plant, these structures allow them to detect chemicals on the surface. This chemical information can help the butterfly evaluate the plant as a food source or, in the case of females, as a place to lay eggs.
As I looked through the photos, I saw the mouthpart, or proboscis, of this sulphur butterfly. It is quite long. In flight, the proboscis is usually curled. Its length helps the cloudless sulphur reach nectar deep within long, tubular flowers such as the trumpet vine.
Lastly, I wondered about the upward position of the cloudless sulphur’s abdomen in flight. During migration, cloudless sulphurs have been described as rapid fliers. By altering the position of the abdomen up or down, a butterfly may be helping control directional changes during flight. In airplane terms, this is somewhat like controlling whether a plane’s nose points up or down or moves left or right.
Several days have now passed. It is late August. The dabs of yellow butter have returned to burrow down into the orange-red trumpet blooms to drink the nectar. So whether these butterflies are summer residents or are now migrating southward, it is a spectacular sight and forever embedded in my memory!
Chang, Sheng-Kai, Lai, Yu-Hsiang, Lin, You-Jun, and Yang, Jing-Tang. “Enhanced lift and thrust via the translational motion between the thorax-abdomen node and the center of mass of a butterfly with a constructive abdominal osciallation.” APS Journals. December 3, 2020. Accessed August 26, 2026.
https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.062407?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Graves, Gary R. “Ornithophily in the trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans).” Ecology and Evolution. September 10, 2024. Accessed 8-25-2026.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.70274?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Hall, Donald W., Walker, Thomas J., and Minno, Marc C. “Cloudless Sulphur Phoebis sennae (Linnaeus) (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Pieridae: Coliadinae.” University of Florida askifas powered by EDIS. December 8, 2025. Accessed August 25, 2026.
https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN929?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Missouri Department of Conservation. “Cloudless Sulphur.” Missouri Department of Conservation. n.d. Accessed August 25, 2026.
https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/cloudless-sulphur
© 2026 Vicki — All photographs and text are protected by copyright and may not be used without permission.
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