Hummingbird Moth
Daily butterfly pictures #89
Enjoyed looking at all your pics everyone!!! No time to comment much ......6 1/2 year old great nephew here this weekend.(8~})
Good to see you back posting Mellie...funny conversation for sure.
I ran across this site. Pretty nicely done…
http://www.raisingbutterflies.org/
Here's an R-rated picture of a male and female monarch--sorry I couldn't get more detail
Marna, thanks for the link. Great site. BCH, lol. I'm still looking for monarch down here.
I was expecting to see a SpicebushST in my backyard this summer, as I did last year. There are sassafras trees in the woods behind my house. Along w spicebush, sassafras is listed as a larval host plant. Instead I found a PipevineST and TMK there aren't any pipevines close by.
One online source I checked said that PipevineSTs were rare to absent in the mid- Atlantic coastal areas.
I had a devil of a time getting a focused pic. He/she moved to the red lobelia and never stopped fluttering. I had to delete a bunch of shots. The rest of the blurry photos.... I'll just call them art.
Those are welcoming sight, Kate. Look at all that pollens on its wings! :)
Yah, tons of pollen!
Numbers are improving today. At one time I had a bunch of Cabbage whites, three Tiger Swallowtails, a sulphur, two silvers-spotted skippers, a common buckeye and a Monarch. PLus brought in two monarch cats.
Dark Form
another dark form. I often see these without the yellow spots on the top
Silver-spotted skipper. Glad to see these have returned.
Battered, but still beauttiful TST on Mexican Sunflower
Common Buckeye--this is only the second one I've seen this year.
Nice photos Mrs. Ed and BCH521! I'm seeing more BFs here, too.
Found this large monarch cat a few minutes ago--he's too big to bring in, but he sure is nice looking
One nice looking cat!
So glad to hear things are looking up Mrs Ed and BCH! I hope we get a few more down here soon and some relief from this blasted heat. I never thought I would hate high pressure as much as I do this year.... :(
Come on fall......
Russell
Four out of six of my Black STs have made their chrysalis. One is still eating and one just didn't make his chrysalis - not sure what went wrong (he made the sling but no chrysalis). No butterfly sightings today because it rained all day long. More rain forecast for tomorrow. We got over four inches just today! I like the rain but I wish it would spread itself out a little more!
Melanie
Marna....That is a wonderful site. Lot of good step by step pictures etc. Love the gizmo idea! Gonna start saving my sour cream containers for that. I don't have a problem getting silk off of the plastic, but It would save me having to carefully scrape it off of the netting. Also those that use the aquarium or reptile cages might find it interesting too.
Love the photos BCH, Kate and Marna.
BCH, why is he too big to bring in?
Molting on the furniture, frass on the carpet, trying to climb on the dog?
Mellie....I have had some cats to get to that point also Melanie then slump and die. Usually it is parasites that cause it, so squish it good to kill them. This one started then died from parasites.
BCH...I was going to ask the same question. I like to bring them all in, just incase they have been parasitized, then I can destroy them before they escape to do more damage. I would isolate it though.
ha! climb on the dog.
ROFLOL!! Melanie
I'll go ahead and throw it outside, too. Funny how I got them all at the same time (very early instar) and to have just one do that. Of course, you never know what you might bring in on the food sometimes.
Seriously, have you noticed caterpillars will climb on anything in their wandering phase? I love when they climb on each other and the one on bottom gets mad and flips the top one off. Mom says they're "wrestling". I say they're doing an impression of a double-decker bus. Either way, it gets pretty hilarious. Like one was sneaking up behind another one and the one in front took his tail and just butt-slapped the caterpillar behind him. I laughed so hard when I saw that!
I went to bring one in and it must have fallen off of the leaf. I searched and searched but didn't find it. Hope it made its way back up the plant. I don't have much hope for these monarchs anyway though because they are on the swamp milkweed with all the aphids. I can just imagine the OE spread.
Melanie.....I don't put them outside.....the parasites will hatch and they are abundant!
Yes, Marna....I have done that too.
This message was edited Aug 9, 2011 6:58 PM
Maybe I should flush him like I do my fish.
Ummm, didn't the instruction called for 'freezing treatment'? They say to freeze the affected caterpillar. I lost one, it made the sling (BST) then didn't develop any further, then turn black. I put it in the freezer to ward off the parasites that got the poor thing. :((
Melanie, those BST cats are fun to watch when they 'wrestle' with one another.
Beautiful pics. Mrs. Ed and BCH. I'm having high hope to see some Guft Frits, and Monarch here soon. :))
We don't bring them in because of trouble w/ parasites. I know we could keep them isolated, but we have just decided to leave them be.
By the way Mrs. Ed still no red Gay Butterflies. All gold or yellow, and mainly gold
Sounds like a good plan, BCH.
Those Gay Butterflies are strange for sure. I'm still not getting seeds on the Yellow one. Just harvested some off of the Orange one though.
I guess I'll start a new thread…
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1209029/