A gulf fritillary just flitted by...

That is a nice picture J.
 
I promise not to post any of my insect picture here...

Are you an entomologist? I've studied it for exams and had collections when I was a kid. There used to be a LOT more butterflies than there are these days, I mean a LOT more. I guess it is agriculture and careless pest and lawn service companies that have done a number on them. I know the termite chemical, Termidor, if used carelessly will kill off a ot of "non'-target" creatures. When they were testing that stuff in France they treated homes with heavy termite activity on all four sides of the structure. They treated one side and it stopped all activity but the most telling trial was IIRC, in Kentucky in a century+ old tobacco barn. It had termite activity all around and it was a BIG building. They drove stakes, I don't know how large, into the ground at intervals right down the middle of the building. Into the dirt floor. They put buckets over the stakes until they had termite activity in the stakes. Then they treated the stakes and gained control of the termite activity in the whole barn. It is a pesticide but it is not detectable and it kills slowly so the termites or other insects or who knows what, get into it and it basically acts like a disease to the colony and kills the whole thing off.
IMO, it is the culprit behind the "mystery" crashing of a lot of honeybee colonies in the last decade. IT is also labelled for treating ants outside but you are only supposed to spot treat and with a small band, but you know as well as I that many people just treat shrubs and ant trails where ever they see them. Then the bees and butterflies and other insects get into it...
That is just one example and I, like I said, I think it's the culprit in the hive crashes but butterflies have been in decline for decades, I think it must be agriculture related.
I guess it would have been circa 1960 when I would have been making butterfly collections. We would tack a piece of cardboard onto a stick and just whack down the ones we wanted, put them in a "kill jar" and then pin them in a cigar box. The street was full of monarchs, viceroys, the big yellow swallowtails, tiger swallowtails, and others and there was no waiting. It was a steady flow.
We were at Perdido Key, on the gulf a few years ago and it was neat to see the steady flow of monarch butterflies heading along the coast back to central America. Some things give me a little hope, then I remember what we did to the American bison, the stories of dove hunters in south America, the carrier pigeon. Then I look across the street and see a sea of kudzu where there was none at all less than ten years ago. Now, they have brought in kudzu bugs, that were supposed to eat the kudzu. They might, but they aren't making a difference and they love to over winter in people's houses, in the wall voids and attic and then trickle out into the warmth of the home all winter long... and you can't get to them. Oh, and the Asian stink bug is a new one that like to over winter in wall voids...
Then a couple of years ago the EPA decided that exterminators can no longer spray the side of a house with any synthetic pyrethroid (except under the eaves) and one square ft treatments, they can't be close to each other.. so we can no longer keep out lady bugs, kudzu bugs, stink bugs, or box elder bugs. They are al OK outside but once they get in your walls, you cannot get to them and you have to deal with them all winter and lady bugs bite!
The worst of it is that a good exterminator will be using a product like Demand CS. It is encapsulated, water activated (when it is wet it closes up and does not release, it does a slow release when dry)... also, once it dires it does not wash away, it stays where you put it... but reasonability has never ben the government's strong suit and they NEVER take into account the "law of unintended consequences" that says, "this isn't working, we have to find something else that does. So now if a professional needs to spray the side of a house to keep out the "occasional invader", what do they have to use? Something that washes away in the rain. It is really stupid, but it started in California so... YMMV.
 
Yeah, I like bugs.
 
J