It's Thursday afternoon, Aug. 20, and it seems like a good time to run a photo of a Gulf Fritilliary.

Because it just is.

It is a joy to see, especially when joy seems elusive as out-of-control wildfires ravage California.

As butterfly guru Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis says about Agraulis vanillae on his website:

"This dazzling bit of the New World Tropics was introduced into southern California in the 19th Century--we don't know how-- and was first recorded in the Bay Area before 1908, though it seems to have become established there only in the 1950s. It can be quite common in the East and South Bay --particularly in Berkeley-- and has been found breeding spontaneously as far inland as Fairfield where, however, it is not established. There are scattered records in the Central Valley and even up to Folsom, perhaps resulting from people breeding the species for amusement or to release at social occasions. According to Hal Michael, who grew up in South Sacramento, this species bred there in abundance on garden Passiflora in the early 1960s. It seems to have died out by the early 1970s, however. Intolerant of hard freezes, it still managed to survive the record cold snap of 1990 that largely exterminated the Buckeye regionally!"

Its host plant: genus Passiflora or passion flower vine. 

"In the Bay Area this species can be seen flying any day of the year, if it is warm and sunny enough," says Shapiro, who has been monitoring the butterfly populations of Central California since 1972 and posts the information on his website.

And if it's "warm and sunny enough," and you're growing Mexican sunflower (genus Tithonia rotundifolia), be sure to capture an image of a dazzling Gulf Fritillary nectaring on that equally dazzling blossom.  

Both are a joy to see.  

Yes, they're still there.

More today than yesterday. That's how it goes in the Magical World of Butterflies.

The Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae) are keeping busy, and so is this insect wedding photographer trying to capture their images.

There! A Gulf Fritillary has just emerged from her chrysalis on the passionflower vine, and a suitor descends within minutes. He doesn't use any pick-up lines. He doesn't have to. In seconds, there's a twosome on the passionflower vine, something apparently rarely seen. (The Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, answers telephone calls from folks who excitedly proclaim they've found a "two-headed butterfly.")

Soon another suitor appears...three heads...a three-headed butterfly?...and flutters away.

Meanwhile, other brides and grooms meet and greet.  It's like being on the Las Vegas strip with all the wedding chapels occupied.

Just another day in the Magical World of Butterflies.

It's commonly called a "passion butterfly," but we call it a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillaea) or Gulf Frit.

Or "spectacular."

A sure sign of autumn:

• A skeletonized passionflower vine (Passiflora)
• A Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) eclosing
• A ravenous caterpillar crawling along a stem, and
• A caterpillar J'ing, about to form a chrysalis.

The orange-reddish butterfly, with its silver-spangled underwings, is a glorious butterfly.

How's the population doing this year?

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis professor of evolution and ecology, who has monitored the butterfly populations of central California for more than four decades and posts his research on Art's Butterfly World, says this year the Gulf Frit population is "spotty; locally abundant but less generally distributed than in recent years."

His 10 field sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin.

We notice the ups and downs of the Gulf Frit population every year in Vacaville. This spring they were slow to start, Western scrub jays and European paper wasps grabbed what few caterpillars there were. In the summer, the population speeded up.  And now caterpillars and chrysalids cover two of our three vines--or what's left of our three vines.

Shaprio says the Gulf Frit was introduced into southern California in the 19th century, in the vicinity of San Diego in the 1870s. It was first recorded in the Bay Area before 1908. "It became a persistent breeding resident in the East and South Bay in the 1950s and has been there since." Once prevalent in the Sacramento area in the 1960s, it "seems to have died out by the early 1970s," he said.  Then in 2009, it began making a comeback in the Sacramento area.

Meanwhile, the passionflower vine climbs our fences with reckless abandon, only to be skeletonized by the growing population of Gulf Frits. They eat the leaves, the flowers, the fruit, and then start in on the bark.

More Gulf Frits mate. More eggs, caterpillars, chrysalids and adults appear. The cycle continues until the first frost. The plants die back, and will recover in the spring. A few chrysalids will remain, clinging to the vines like leftover Christmas tree ornaments,

Surprises occur. Several years ago, we saw a Gulf Frit laying an egg on Christmas Day.

Where are you, Gulf Fritillaries?

The Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) population seems to be diminishing this year around Solano and Yolo counties.

A few here, a few there, but not in the large numbers of last year.

Last summer the Gulf Frits overwhelmed our passionflower vine (Passiflora), their host plant, and skeletonized it.

Which is what we want them to do. We plant Passiflora for them, not for the fruit or the blossoms.  On a good year, they eat it all--blossoms, fruit, leaves and stems--and look for more.

The history of the butterfly in California is as striking as its silver-spangled, reddish-orange coloring.

“It first appeared in California in the vicinity of San Diego in the 1870s,” says noted butterfly expert Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. “It spread through Southern California in urban settings and was first recorded in the Bay Area about 1908. It became a persistent breeding resident in the East and South Bay in the 1950s and has been there since.”

Shapiro, who has monitored butterflies in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu,  says the Gulf Frit “apparently bred in the Sacramento area and possibly in Davis in the 1960s, becoming extinct in the early 1970s, then recolonizing again throughout the area since 2000.”

It's making a comeback, but this year it doesn't seem to be "coming back" so much.

Want to attract the Gulf Frit? Plant its host plant and some of its favorite nectar plants. In our pollinator garden in Vacaville, their favorite nectar sources include the butterfly bush (Buddleia), Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) and lantana (genus Lantana.)

Plant them and they will come--if they're around!