Sept. 6: Beautiful butterflies

Entomologists have noticed that butterflies, whose populations have dropped the past couple of years, are starting to return to more normal numbers.

Last summer, especially, was too cool and wet for butterflies to thrive, and the summer of 2008 got off to an extraordinarily wet and slightly cooler start.

Because they are cold-blooded and can't generate their own warmth, they thrive when temperatures rise. And this year, like so many other insects, they're finding plenty of food to feed on. The lush landscape has provided a near smorgasbord for insects.

Expect to see monarch numbers increase, now that the fall migration is getting under way. Also arriving now is the cloudless sulphur:, enticed northward by nectar from its preferred flower, a late bloomer known as the partridge pea.

Source: Stephen Spomer, University of Nebraska-Lincoln entomologist

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