The backyard
overgrown with wild grape,
hollyhock, creeping charlie,
is home to a thousand
white butterflies this August….

Ann Filemyr

NOTES FOR THE FOURTH WEEK OF LATE SUMMER
THE FORTIETH WEEK OF THE NATURAL YEAR
    The Wild Plum Moon entersits final quarter on September 1 at 12:22 p.m. Rising in the evening and setting in the afternoon, this crescent moon lies overhead throughout the morning.
    Venus, Saturn and Mars remain in Virgo during September, rising after dawn and moving to the western horizon by dusk.  Jupiter accompanies Pisces during September, coming up in the east after dark, moving overhead by 2:00 a.m., and setting in the far west before dawn.

BUTTERFLY NOTES

You see, this is the year.
Nancy Stranahan

    Our butterfly bushes began to bloom on June 17th. A week later, the first spicebush swallowtail butterfly and then the first fritillary came by after lunch. At the end of June, red admiral butterflies were swarming in the yard, and a rare southern Polydamas swallowtail  - usually found in Florida and the Southwest) appeared about 1:15 on the 30th.
    The heat of July and August brought more butterflies than I had ever seen here before: the red admirals and fritillaries, the spicebush swallowtails, sulphurs, white cabbage butterflies, browns, monarchs, question marks, yellow tiger swallowtails (eight covering the butterfly bushes at one time on August 2), Eastern black swallowtails (sometimes attacking the spicebush swallowtails and swirling around the flowers in vibrant randori), giant swallowtails, zebra swallowtails, and now great numbers of white-spotted skippers.
    On August 14, Jonatha wrote: “I have exclaimed all summer at the number and variety of butterflies.  I do not remember so many since my teens, back in Missouri.  As a child I loved them all, learned their names, took specimen and photographs.”
    Jonatha also sent notes by Nancy Stranahan dated August 12: “You see, this is the year. A year not only for berries, but for butterflies, too. We might not experience a summer like this again in southern Ohio for another ten years.” Other reports from the East and Midwest confirm our experience here, the abundance of Lepidoptera thought to be related to the heavy snows of late winter, followed by a warm spring and a hot summer.