Painted Lady nectaring on coneflower. /© Bryan Pfeiffer
Painted Lady butterflies are flitting about fields, gardens, roadsides and meadows throughout eastern North America and beyond. Like Monarch butterflies, with which they are sometimes confused, Painted Ladies are now migrating southward.
Each fall, they vacate Canada and most of the U.S. and during winter are active only in parts of the extreme southern U.S. and Mexico. When spring arrives, they push northward to breed, sometimes arriving in the Northeast in large numbers. But they’re not as predictable as Monarchs.
This year there was a very early and large arrival of Painted Ladies in April and early May, and they were able to have two generations instead of one, creating a huge population that is now moving southward throughout the eastern half of North America. But about a week ago, a strong southern weather flow in the Northeast brought the migration to a lull.
“The butterflies we see are those that are nectaring on flowers for fuel. The Painted Lady butterflies that are actually migrating are likely out of our view several thousand feet in the air,” said Max Larrivée, an entomologist at the Montréal Insectarium and founder of e-Butterfly.org.
But, where exactly are they going? With a massive effort by volunteer citizen scientists, we can begin to piece together this migratory puzzle with butterfly checklisting.
When eButterfly users submit complete checklists of butterflies and their effort expended to find them, it allows us to do a variety of interesting analyses. We can show where a species is found and where it hasn’t been reported. We can calculate the chances that a species will be found at a given time of year in certain locations. And most importantly, we can develop species distribution models that show these migrations across the continent using Spatio-Temporal Exploratory Models (STEM) that have been specifically developed for checklist data by statisticians and researchers at eBird.
Visit eButterfly.org and add all of your butterfly checklists, with and without Painted Lady observations, everyday this fall and help us unravel the mysteries to their migrations across North America.
Checklists with Painted Lady reports in eButterfly during 2017.
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A patch of Asters, right on Riverside Avenue in Burlington, swarming with bees and painted ladies.
If you could add your observation to e-butterfly.org – http://www.e-butterfly.org or Vermont iNaturalist – http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/vermont-atlas-of-life, that would be fantastic. Thanks!
Painted Ladies on Butterfly Bushes. Cape Cod, MA
September 18, 2017
We still have Bees, Swallowtails, Monarchs,
and Painted Ladies, on Sedum and Butterfly Bushes. Cape Cod, MA 9/18/17
Took several pictures yesterday of painted ladies on asters in Wilson’s Mills Maine. Between Errol Nh and Rangeley Maine.
I saw some at the Stowe Pinnacle hiking trail by the meadow ..
Painted ladies at Cadys falls nursery and our gardens in Irasburg .
My laptop is misbehaving at present; but I can attempt an account of painted lady and/or American painted lady sightings. At almost any time during midday these are present at the garden on grounds of Hartford VT town hall. At any one time the most I have seen numbered two, both wanting to spread wing surfaces maximally in sunlight. Also occurred the occasional monarch.
I have five as of today!
We have at least ten on one plant in Elmore, VT. Can send a photo.
I had two on the marigolds in my garden on Oct. 13.
There are many painted ladies in Broomhill area of Glasgow clustered around a lilac tree. They are beautiful.
August 2019, several painted ladies have been enjoying echinacia, galardia this summer in my garden in Thunder Bay, Ontario. A few years ago, they enjoyed laying eggs on borage here, but borage has died. Quite plentiful here.
Painted lady in Ottawa south Canada 🇨🇦 it looks extremely similar to the Australia painted lady but how can that be
5 painted ladies. 4 monarchs. 1 silver admiral. All on butterfly bush.
Linda says:
October 5, 2019
Painted Lady butterfly is still visiting our flower garden in North Bay, Ontario
Hey I see this is an old article , but today I saw 2 painted ladies in my yard in columbus, georgia. Hour south of atlanta. They are so pretty. Hope this helps
In Nebraska City, NE today, July 29, 2020
*July 30, 2020
Our lilac bush was covered in them, at least 50 about 2 years ago in Pelly Saskatchewan
We have not seen any since
I saw a painted lady as I walked to my local library in Reading, PA. today.
Painted ladys have found a home at the Green Bay Botanical Gardens. Spotted July 2023.
Painted Lady on my Dandelion flower today. Georgetown Tx, Seems a bit early.
May 9 2024, Portland, Or. I watched a painted lady moving from blossom to blossom on our Korean pink lilac. I don’t remember ever seeing one before today.
Painted Ladies have overwhelmed Moorhead, MN in August 2020. They are showing a prefernce for purple flowers in my wife’s flower beds, and cover trails in Gooseberry Park south of town. That could be because there is a blooming alfalfa field just outside Gooseberry Park.
They must be heading south already.