Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Daily Butterfly Pix, #102, 2 by mellielong

mellielong wrote:
It has been a very rainy day today but I still managed to get some butterflying in. At MOSI we only had the flight cage open for a little while but I managed to let a few families in to look around and take pictures. Some of the people had those huge cameras that said they were serious about photography! The first picture of a female Orange-Barred Sulphur is from MOSI.

I ran into a family in the garden while I was looking for caterpillars. I showed them the Polydamas caterpillars I had found and then it became an all-out contest to see who could find the most. The kids were really good but the adults were finding them, too! I ended up with about thirty - most of them fifth instars! It was Polydamas insanity! I also found some Black STs on the rue which was neat because I hadn't seen any at the museum yet.

Back home I went out to pick some rue for the Giant STs and caught some butterflies basking in between rainstorms. The White Peacock was back out front (second picture). Then, the Gulf Frit was on the coreopsis; I'm glad they're starting to use it. I couldn't get pictures of the Duskywing or Zebra Longwing but they were out there, too. Finally, I found two more Monarchs that were on milkweed sticks so I moved them over to plants that actually had leaves on them.

Melanie