Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Butterfly population down?, 1 by Mrs_Ed

Mrs_Ed wrote:
NatureLover, I am soooo happy to hear you report this about your population of hummers. This is my fifth year at this house. When I moved here there were maybe two plants in the back yard and those just looked like something someone missed when they got rid of all the rest (one dark iris and one ditch lily). I've been slowly adding plants for hummingbirds and butterflies. I have HBs now. I've had 3 all year, none since May. For the past three years though, I've had 3 weeks of heavy HB activity in September, the migration back south. Still, nothing in the summer. I thought I read once that it can take up to 5 years to establish a hummingbird population and perhaps your experience supports that. This year I have lots and lots of HB plants, but still no takers, even at my big trumpet vine.

And are you ready for this? Someone on the Birdwatching forum had 40 at her feeders one night!

I'm hoping the butterflies are just "behind" just like this crazy weather. Took us forever to get into this summer pattern.

Oddly, here is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that had just emerged from a chrysalis (location unknown) and was crawling up the side of the garage! That was several weeks ago and not much to report since.