Even though much of the United States is struggling with late snow, here in Florida spring has definitely arrived. I’ve recently shared several posts about spring wildflowers, but for wildflowers to thrive they need pollinators. And of course, the pollinators are also coming back out along with the flowers. On Monday I went outside to do some bird watching and ended up getting distracted by some of the butterflies that were fluttering around nearby. Among them was this pretty little common buckeye (Junonia coenia), which is one of the brush footed butterflies. Like most of the brush footed butterflies, it’s very colorful with a mixture of browns, oranges, and blacks. It’s also usually one of the earliest species to show up after the flowers start blooming. This one and several others were enjoying the warm afternoon sun and my heavily flowering blackberry bushes. I actually was also enjoying the weather and taking photos in the blackberries. They’re kind of prickly, but they produce gorgeous flowers that attract all sorts of interesting pollinators.