Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES PAGE 6, 0 by mellielong

mellielong wrote:
Thanks everyone, but you should have seen the ones that got away. I saw a gulf fritillary (possibly two, could have been the same guy). It kept landing on the white walls of our house and then over to the white walls of Dad's shed. Then, I was out front and a zebra longwing flew over me! I never see those in the neighborhood, but then again, we never had passion vine before (evil laughter here). I also saw the common yellow sulphur and those little white ones that seem to like my neighbors' yard. I saw another swallowtail and ran after it, but it crossed the street and I don't like to play in traffic. It was mostly yellow underneath so I'm hoping maybe tiger swallowtail? I saw it the other day but it seems to like my neighbor's backyard and all my neighbors have fences, darnit! I was out planting all the wonderful plants I purchased at the USF butterfly festival so maybe they were all showing me how happy they were.

Thanks for the ID; I was leaning toward Polydamus, but I wasn't sure. I was too busy chasing the thing to really look! Both of those butterflies were photographed on the plumbagos, so if you don't have any, I highly recommend them. The Tiger STs like them too. I have to admit I think they get srcaggly looking and they grow like crazy and the flowers stick to you...but it's worth it to have all those visitors.

Speaking of visitors, I saw another winged creature out and about today, but this one was a lot bigger than a butterfly. I call it our neighborhood watchdog (watchhawk?). It's funny how close I can get to it nowadays. It used to fly away but now I think it just sees me as some kind of animal digging up roots or something. I saw two of them on our oak tree a few weeks ago. I think they must have a nest somewhere near; the one was really active today - it flew by me and over me several times as I was gardening.