Start watching for butterflies...

I think I may have seen these before.
I remember thinking they didn't quite look like a monarch but I assumed it was. The color, anyway, is so similar.

Are they in the same family?

In fact yes, they are in Nymphalidae, the brush-foot family. But similarity of pattern is not to indicate that they are closely related. The brush-foot family is large and varied in both size and coloration.

The odd name comes from the fact that two of the six feet are shorter and, well, brush-like. Thought to help in detecting plant types. Butterflies typically need a specific plant family to lay eggs on. They are amazing at sensing chemical composition with a touch of their feet!)

Here are the five butterfly families: tinyurl.com/bzkykc

You're doing well. Having never heard of the Wandering Skipper, I had to look it up. Maybe this page will be one you've seen:
nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/lepidopt/hesper/wanderin.htm
It sure has a neat name: Panoquina errans. I can see the errans as meaning wandering, now to work on Panoquina. NOTE: See footnote added:
Tip: When talking butterfly, if you can include the scientific name, it helps the next person. I looked up wandering skipper and found a Carson Wandering Skipper; Carson Nevada, and it's noe endangered list! When I added Newport Beach, I got results I wanted. Sure enough, Big Canyon. Makes me wonder if that's a micro habitat? If so, good to know.

Skippers are odd little guys; sort of a stage between butterflies and moths. They are butterflies, but the wings are significantly different, and there are other unusual things about them, Abundant and usually hard to ID, I was happy to stick to leaving them for "later":, like birders leave LBBs for later, botanists leave DYCs for later! [[LBB=little brown bird; DYC=damn yellow composite; if there's an acronym for skippers I have not yet heard it.] Anyway, the good news is that unlike plants, common names for butterflies are pretty much universal. Still, as this example shows, if there is a modified common name ( ie, adding Carson...) it generally means that butterfly is somehow "special".

Butterfly names are interesting in another way: unlike plant names, butterfly names are more from the 18th century, a time when the wealthy gentlemen traveled to discover things, and having Classical educations, Latin and Greek supplied interesting ideas for names. The OxEye butterfly is Cercyonis pegala boopis. I laughed at the "boopis" part and had to ask Art. Turns out it is Bo-opis (long O, hesitate) meaning specifically OX (think bovine) and EYE (think optic) So as you stumble along with those science names, at least you can have a bit of insight. Plant names tell a lot about the plant, butterfly names often take a different path.

"The origin of the Panoquina name:
"In any event, the death of Metacomet ended all Native American resistance in southern New England.
Another chief who participated in King Philip’s War against the English was Quanopin also known as “Panoquin.” Scudder used
this name for Salt Marsh Skipper, Panoquina panoquin (Scudder 1864) although the genus name was not created until 1934."

I have never heard of those. They are really beautiful.

I've seen those painted lady irruptions maybe a couple of times and they really are remarkable. Thousands of butteflies gently passing by in the same direction (NW) for what seems like a month or two.

Here we have quite a lot of swallowtails, not sure of the exact species but apart from this one there are a couple more very similar


as well as an occasional monarch