This guy showed up today... biggest butterfly I have seen around here in years... Any idea who it is?
Got a couple pics, this is a dwarf sunflower he is on
Janis
Butterflies with my sunflowers
Another
This is on my Velvet Queen sunflower yesterday
I have no idea who this is either.
Janis
This message was edited Aug 8, 2005 8:03 PM
Pic would help :)
Janis-That is a beautiful tiger swallowtail. I just was in my garden and I had 8 of them on one of my white butterfly bushes. They are a sight to behold. I'm glad one came to visit you! Linda
Thanks Linda..... I couldn't believe it when I went outside. Of course I didn't have the camera. I was so glad he was still there :)
Hopefully now that there are flowers here, we'll get butterflies. I haven't seen many at all, seems like the population is dwindling.
Janis
Janis-I didn't have very many butterflies until about two weeks ago, and now I have a great many. It has always seemed to me that they are most prolific when it is extremely hot. It has certainly been that here so they must be happy. lol
I hope so.... it seems there were so many butterflies when I was a kid, and now you hardly see them. No one really has any flower gardens to speak of here oin our little patch of OH, maybe my flowers will bring them in :)
Janis
They're probably flying along looking for your flowers right now. lol
I hope you continue to see them everyday. For some reason, they are very calming to me. They seem so graceful and peaceful that they give me a lift every time I see one. Linda
These butterflies have been monopolizing my garden this summer. Is it a yellow swallowtail? My Mom saw one of these fighting with a big black & blue one. The black and blue butterfly won and stuck around awhile, and the yellow went away. We haven't seen the black and blue again since, tho. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, too! DitchLily
If I had a sailboat, I would want the sails to look like the wings of a yellow tiger swallowtail.
DitchLily, the black and blue butterfly may have been the female Tiger Swallowtail.
Wow - I didn't know that! I guess I misidentified a Pipevine in my thread, because it is indeed the black form female... gotta go fix it!
Good catch Janis. The one on your sunflower (which is too cool by itself) is one of the fritillary I think. I haven't seen any butterflys on the the sunflowers this year. Of course there's not much room the way the bumblebees are ganging up on them.
I've had swallowtails working the butterfly bushes all day for the last 2 weeks. Coincidence one also struck me as larger than I've seen this afternoon. Not the best shots but you can see the size.
What I'm really happy about is that I've got swallowtailS every day this year. Prior to this I'm only blessed with a couple of drivebys and monarchs and painted ladies are the mainstay.
This message was edited Aug 9, 2005 8:56 PM
This message was edited Aug 9, 2005 8:56 PM
at an angle but caught it on a closer bloom.
8ft,
Thanks so much :)
I am so in love with those sunflowers, the velvet queens. I plan to plant LOTS of them next spring..... mabe mixing them with Jade or Italian White ones.
your swallowtail looks bigger than mine. I need to take a pic of that dwarf sunflower with something as perspective. I still cnnot believe the size of the butterfly.
I hope to draw in more butterflies.... no one here gardens at all, my neighbor on the right has some containers on their porch and a few tomatoes, but that is it. I have seen more butterflies this year, than I have in the past 3 years we've been here combined :)
Janis
Janis, don't deadhead or cut down the sunflowers. If anthing, strip off the leaves as they die. The goldfinches will be on them and next spring just keep an eye out. You'll have a random few here and there sprouting. I've got sunflowers around the house but haven't planted any in 5 or 6 years. My Gold Finch gang takes care of that.
Thanks for the advice.,
DH was just complaining about the ones that had died.... I told him to leave them LOL Now I have a reason :)
Janis
Blaine is right about goldfinches and sunflower heads. They pick them clean and scatter seed. Here's a pic of a lone volunteer sunflower in my front "jungle" bed. Goldfinch has eaten half the seed in a couple days. Becky
They've been investigating the heads every day watching the progress and staking their territory I guess.
The one that came up by the mail box was turning into an 8 footer and I can home to find it snapped over. The core was brown so I don't know if it was just wind and it snapped or the mailman was getting nervous. The short one on the right was a very late sprout and I let it go.
These two guard the exit around the west side of the house. I like the way the volunteers usually show up in the bed borders and kind of mark the paths.
The mailman was probably afraid of getting pecked by the goldfinches! Mine all bent over after the heads started to ripen. If I want them to be straight, guess I need to stake them. They are only 5 ft or so, not the real tall ones.
Great pics! Y'all have inspired me to take some of my sunflowers and not to cut them down. I don't even know if we have Goldfinches in my area, but maybe I can attract something different with mine.
Loved all the butterfly photos. The only large ones I have ever seen in this area are the Swallowtails, and not many of those. i have a pretty large garden area , about 2 acres. Have 6 different Buddleias. 3 kinds of asclepias (don't think the monarchs come this far west). Lots of volunteer sunflowers, which the bees love.
Have one mud basin which usually has moisture, for the butterflies, but there just aren't many butterflies. DonnaS