yah, i think yours looks more like the spicebush samples.
DAILY PICTURES #103
Great pics. I was outside looking at the dill, fennel and rue after our recent rains and was pleasantly surprised to find 9 BST cats in various stages of development! I brought in 6 of the larger ones and left the others outside to enjoy the rain.
Most of them were found on Italian parsley, 1 each on fennel and rue.
Oddly - all of the Gulf Fritillary cats that were on my passion vine yesterday are GONE! Maybe the rain washed them away, or maybe the cardinal I saw picking them off the other day came back to the hunting grounds. Cardinals are rarely in my yard, but when they are, they dine on GF and BST cats! :)
Russell
Nanny, you've got an Eastern Black ST. You can tell because if you look at the reddish orange spot at the bottom of their lower wings, it has a black dot inside it. Kind of like a bullseye. Other butterflies have orange or reddish spots but it doesn't have the black dot inside it like the BST.
Melanie
Thanks guys....whenever I think I have it down I get it wrong!! lol
But good to have those 2 close in a post for reference.
Well flittering and fluttering The BST left these today .
Those wings never stopped for even a second .. Looked over every plant around the place before depositing these...
Now I have a question.. Why is the Eastern female ST in the pics above , laying eggs on Queen anne's lace .? Same BF . it seems I have male eastern tiger and black ST females floating about ,,.?
Well, you've definitely got a female Black ST laying eggs for you! I'm sure that means there's a male out there somewhere. At least you're seeing some action!
Melanie
IT is 93 degrees here the sun is blazing down so I am hiding in the AC . went and deadheaded a few flowers , like 5min. and soaked , so not doing much for a while .. I guess some mulch around that one , so I do not mow the eggs down , that is actually a weed growing where it should not be..
That is one of the two most difficult plants to control here , Only our flighty little friends deserve some room and space to do what they do ..
We can't hog it all , (us humans) although we are trying with "Control" lol
A new baby Syrica came up about a ft away from there ,so I have an excuse for mulching there ...
Juhur, Queen Anne's lace is in that same family, so the Eastern Black Swallowtails use that as a host plant too.
Speaking of EBSTs, I was doing my morning watering and finally found two more cats. I've spent a long time looking at that dill and never saw them. Now they are like 3rd instars! Also had a tiger swallowtail flitting about, but no pictures.
What I DO have a picture of is this container. I think that the packaging designer must have been a caterpillar raiser, because it is perfect container for the early instars.
Russell, about your cats and cardinals.............mine prefer safflower seeds to almost anything else in the yard, can't hurt to give it a try.
Mrs ed. Nice.
Every year I try to prepare better, but never feel prepared.
My 6 bst cats are huge! They switched from dill to the fennel without complaint, but them seem cramped in the container I put them in initially. I guess I will separate them.
Saw two BST on Echinacea at the back 40 this morning. I guess I should prepare for more!
Just finished reading monarch watch blog by chip Taylor. Has anyone in the northern breeding range sighted monarchs yet?
I have an acquaintance east of Raleigh who has 7 acres she wanted to fill with MW. Last year by now she had hundreds of cats. At this point, nada.
Last year and the year before I sighted one or two in April before the return in August - September.
Any who. There maybe a thread in the forum I should follow. Hope you don't mind this inquiry here.
I've been a little lazy this week, but I have some butterfly pictures for you today! First is two Black STs I let go yesterday. Then today, I got a Zebra Longwing on the porterweed. Next is a really roughed-up Duskywing on my coreopsis. Fourth is a BST that Mom released this morning while I slept in. And finally, the ever-present Gulf Frit on some porterweed.
Melanie
Greets:
We are about to get a series of thunderstorms and more rain today and this week, so much for butterflies. Had just started to see activity picking up in the yard.
Lost one of the 6 BST yesterday. Looks like it busted out. They are ready to do their thing, already one spinning his harness.
The thing - as I was re-arranging and setting up new netting/cages I noticed a tiny worm on the fennel I'd brought in for the BST to eat this morning. It has dots on either side, like the eye-mimicking dots some of our friends have, but I have no idea what this is.
I hope the tiny picture is clear enough to ID.
A.
I'm not sure exactly what that caterpillar is but we get them this time of year, too. They seem to eat just about anything. One time we had an infestation of them in the flight cage at the museum and I had to kill a lot of them so they wouldn't eat all the plants. Feel free to raise it if you want; I'd be interested to see what it becomes.
Melanie
Zebra Swallowtail and a Spicebush Swallowtail drinking from the sidewalk.
Very nice! Zebra Swallowtails are my favorite but I don't get to see them too often.
Melanie
Beautiful shots Jokenna.
Russell
Would LOVE to see a zebra swallowtail.
Here are 3 of the 4 Black Swallowtail cats I've found so far. I think this is the first time I've actually seen one in mid-poop!
The fourth cat is a first instar, that oddly enough, I did not see, but was apparently on some of the fresh dill I put in the cage.
Went out to fungicide the orchids and had a few visitors. The usual Gulf Frits and Zebra Longwings are out there, of course. I also found some nearly full-grown Monarch cats munching away all my milkweed. I had to move one to a different plant so he'd have something to eat. But my real surprise was seeing a Pipevine Swallowtail (Pictures 1 and 2) and a Palamedes Swallowtail (Pictures 3 and 4)! I don't see the Palamedes very often, usually early in the spring and then not until the fall. You can tell a Palamedes because they have stripes on their body, not spots, plus they have a stripe on the underside of their wing that runs parallel to their body.
Melanie
I seen a few Bf's no pic's though , the SWT's, A hummingbird , Even a red spotted purple chewing on a fallen plum ..
nice pic's you all , still fun to watch and see , I think all the BF;s and bees visiting are doing a good job of pollinating this year , more milkweed pod's than I have seen in a long while . lot's of fruit too ..
AH indeed , nature at work !!!
Beautiful Cats and butterflies!
I know the Spicebush like the sassafras trees but not sure why the Zebra is hanging around, not much here for it. They do love it when I wet down my sidewalk must be getting lots of minerals and water.
Well here's a pic of a cat could be better , but you can see it ..
SWT 's yep ...
Not much her at all. Mostly EST's and an occasional BST. A frit here and there and Cabbage Whites. Did see this (I think) Gray Hairstreak .
oops forgot the photos! lol
Nanny, that about sums up my sightings as well.
Enjoy the Hairstreaks here also little blue guys flittering around , only thing is their cats, eat the Hollyhocks bare..
nanny_56 Nice pics of those from you also..
Nanny, looks like you've got one of the Blues there. Not sure which kind you get up there, maybe the Eastern-Tailed Blue?
Melanie
Saw a silver spotted skipper a couple of red Admirals and this .. A much smaller version than the pic before ..
Could be an Eastern Blue Tailed....I was not positive on it!
Those two there are about the size of a Red Admiral , the Question mark on an earlier version of this thread was the size of a Monarch or Swallowtail ..
These look like a ? mark or comma in miniature.. You can see them hatching that way and they have larvae chewing on the vines of green beans. Okay if they don't eat too much ..
Collecting my nettle leaves for tea , I keep having to put red admiral eggs or pupae back in plants as I clean through the leaves , Tedium tolerance for a few going on here ,, not bad though
Yay! Progress on the BST front. The first one is prepping itself!
The rest aren't far behind.
Too cool.
Russell
Happy Birthday Russell! Looks like you have some lovely gifts there!
I took these through a window this morning
Ans; yes happy birthday ,,also to our fellow DG'r
This afternoon a few minutes ago , same one , the missing piece of the wing ..
Glad the Fennel is as large as it is bunches of cat's there .
Be careful what you wish for folks! A Polydamas finally found my pipevine and I swear I brought in about 100 caterpillars. Yes, 100 caterpillars! I didn't count them individually, but I know how many clusters I picked off so many leaves and I estimated. Check out the picture for one of the bigger clusters I found.
I also rounded up some Monarchs that were eating my milkweed into oblivion. It needs a little recovery time for crying out loud! The museum is getting a big caterpillar donation this week, LOL!
Melanie
Happy belated birthday Russell. Ju coincidentally I've seen EST bf here too. Melanie, wow, wow, wow. I WISH, I WISH, I WISH...but not polydamas cats, but maybe Monarch or G. frits cats. please pretty please. lol
(no Polydamas because I don't have the native pipevine for them sniff, sniff).
I saw an orange and black bfly yesterday moving quickly thru our park across the street. Flight was erratic. Kept touching down in the short grass. It looked to be too small from my distance to be a monarch(?) But then again...
I think definitely orange and black outline on the wings. Will hold my breath.
Is there a better place than the "Insect and Spider ID" forum to post ID questions about Moths?
I usually have such great luck in that forum, as there are several extremely helpful and knowledgeable people that follow it, but so far no one has responded to my post from yesterday. Since the answers generally come quickly, I was curious if posting in the Hummingbird and Butterfly forum would be more suitable.
By-the-way, Mrs_Ed, I hope I didn't appear unappreciative with regards to butterfly monitoring in Lake County. I really do appreciate it...a lot. I may have misunderstood the county info...I guess it doesn't really matter what county you live in? And Lake County isn't that far from me. The biggest problem right now is we're sharing a car for a while, so possibly sometime in the future would be better...but Thank You.
oh, no worries. I just thought Algonquin was in lake county, LOL. Doesn't matter where you live to monitor. The closest spot to me is 20 miles away and in another county! But my though was more that you could see which locations where near you and once you find a location, you can check the data on that site to see what kind of butterflies you see. For example, up at Illinois beach state park, you can go in may and see Olympia Marbles. I'd like to do that some day.
Here's some new information about my monitoring: next year, my route will be enclosed in a fenced area with… drumroll… BISON. Cripes, I'll probably get gored to death.
Wow...Real live BISON? OMG!