Fabulous Day at Ft. Fisher -- Butterflies and More Butterflies!!

It was a beautiful day for a walk down along the water at Ft. Fisher.  The water was calm and a Caribbean blue.

This is one of the pathways leading down to the water.  It is supposedly not safe for swimming here but people fish and the surfers love it for the long waves.

I have probably taken pictures of this view many times before but  it is just so pretty!

As soon as I got down there, I noticed that there were 100's of butterflies all over.  I have never seen so many butterflies congregated in one place outside of those museum exhibits!!  I managed to identify 8 different species but I am sure there were others that I missed -- they do tend to flit a bit!!  The most common one today was the Common Buckeye pictured here.  I think all the butterflies know that cold weather is coming tomorrow -- it was glorious out today!

This is a male Common Checkered Skipper.  You can see it is fairly small as it is resting on a painted daisy.  I hadn't seen this one before.

This is a side view of an American Lady.  I only managed one picture with open wings -- they aren't as pretty on top as they are on the bottom!

I now believe this is a Southern Skipperling as the European Skipper is really not found locally.

I believe this is an Ocola Skipper  which I have seen at Greenfield Park Lake.  Hard to tell but I didn't see any white spots on the side.

This is a Grey Hairstreak which I first saw just the other day at Carolina Beach State Park.

This is the Gulf Fritillary which was the second most common butterfly I saw today.  I have pictured those many times and they do like to pose!

This is the Cloudless Sulphur, also very common around here and shows how butterflies got their name!!

This is a Buckeye and a Grey Hairstreak sharing a flower.  I saw multiple butterflies inhabiting the same flowers, but usually the same species.  The Buckeye looks very different from below as many butterflies do.

I believe this is a Grapeleaf Skeletonizer moth.  Didn't want to leave the moths out altogether!