Photos from Great Smoky Mountains weekend

[Patti from Kentucky]

Jeane and I took a labor day weekend jaunt to the Smoky Mountains, where the butterflies were the highlight of the trip!  So, if you enjoy photos of butterflies, there are lots here for you!

Thumbnail format:
http://bellhanley.smugmug.com/Weekend-Fun/Smokies-2010

Slideshow format:
http://bellhanley.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=13828059&AlbumKey=M8DNN

[dale]

Thanks, Patti!
Gorgeous butterflies  - thanks for sharing them!

[Kris G.]

Nice pics, Patti!   Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!

[MAK]

Forgive me if I've said this before but you guys go to the best places! And we get to go too through your wonderful photos. Thank you for sharing!  

[gayle]

Thanks for sharing these beautiful creatures, Patti!  And this is a great system for sharing, far superior to Kodak!

Gayle

[Paul Hamilton]

Thanks Patti!  Either the mountain shots or the butterfly ones would have made a wonderful album by themselves, so the combination was really outstanding.  I recognized lots of Tiger Swallowtails, but many of the butterflies were unknown to me, including the blue ones.  Can you tell is what they were?

Paul

[Patti from Kentucky]

Thanks Patti!  Either the mountain shots or the butterfly ones would have made a wonderful album by themselves, so the combination was really outstanding.  I recognized lots of Tiger Swallowtails, but many of the butterflies were unknown to me, including the blue ones.  Can you tell is what they were?

Paul

I am not a butterfly expert, but I think all of the non-yellow butterflies were either:
1) the black form of the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, which, as you correctly surmised, is what all the yellow ones are.
or
2) a Pipevine Swallowtail.  The one that's mostly black with the iridescent blue on the upper wing is a Pipevine Swallowtail, which is also shown elsewhere with it's under-wings showing, which have orange spots on them:
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=1350

I went back and added the species identification to the captions where I could figure it out.

[valhalla]

Great shots, Patti!  Those butterflies are all over my gardens in Southern MD - sometimes thought I was in swallowtail central with all of the varieties of them.  Thanks for doing the ID legwork - appreciate it