Woke up to my Red-spotted Purple already emerged and ready to leave
New Babies today
underwing
top side
My Giant Swallowtail chrysalis
Chrysalis going through changes and butterfly about to emerge
newly emerged and shaking out wings
almost dry
ready to go
Great ! nice pictures, thanks
Wonderful pictures. I know I've never seen the process before. Will have to let my daughter see these pictures, she'll be in awe.
Very nice pictorial, Donna! Thank you!!
Lily I have the complete life cycle of the Monarch here except the egg pic I have to find http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=527065397&security=iYHGgi
Donna, that's incredible. Thanks so much for sharing that!
We are going to start our butterfly garden next spring, and someone has been kind enough to send me some milkweed seeds. So, beyond that, I've been researching what plants to provide. Passion vine will be another definite, along with dill, and well, other good stuff. :)
I think I know where I want to put the garden, but the problem I'm running into is the fact that we have underground electrical lines, not to mention phone, gas and cable, so I have to be very careful where I can dig in my back yard.
My daughter has caught a few caterpillars that have actually cacooned themselves and a few have actually turned into moths.
She's been begging for a butterfly garden, and it disheartens me to see these gorgeous butterflies flitting about over the new highways, knowing they are being pushed out yet again. Now, if I could request the rock quarry to stop mowing the berm in the spring and the summer, that would be great. But, I'm sure the neighbors would complain.
Again, thanks much for your wonderful pictures of the Monarch life cycle!
Oh my gosh, those pictures are beautiful, Donna!!! That Red-spotted Purple doesn't even look real!!
Awesome!
That's what I was thinking... he looks so poised and elegant there on the end of your finger in the second post... unreal!
Donna, your photos and your knowledge continually amaze me... I'm only an occasional drop-in at this forum, but I have to come by every so often to see what you've added here! My own butterfly garden is coming along well, thanks to the seeds you and others so generously shared with me last year! In fact, I found my first "customers" yesterday, right where they "should" be -- a monarch cat on the milkweed, and a swallowtail cat on the bronze fennel! When I went out again later, they hid from me (and my camera), but I was treated to a long visit by a lovely sphinx moth while I was standing in the middle of the garden... My DH saw him too, and now he understands why we don't squish all tomato hornworms any longer. (I just hope they like nicotiana, because that's where we've put them.)
Thank you!!
:-)
I hope so too. Glad things are coming along for your BF garden. Keep watching that Milkweed you'll probably see cats soon
So far,I've seen just the one monarch cat on my milkweed... hopefully there will be more! Oh, and I have Lion's Ear plants (from your seeds!) that are at least 6 feet tall and just starting to bloom.... hopefully will manage to collect seeds to share... Are they any cats in particular that I might hope to see on it? Or is it mostly a nectar source?
no cats on the Lions Ear but the butterflies and hummers feed from it. Chele got me hooked on it. It does great in a pot and can be over wintered. Just cut it back by half, pot it up, and keep somewhere it won't freeze. Snip the brown dry seed head off, leaves some stalk to hold onto. Those buggers are needle sharp. I usually put it in a paper bag and bang on the stem with scissors or something to shake the seeds out
Donna, you are one super butterfly mom! thanks for the excellent pics
Thanks for the tips on overwintering and seed collecting! I've got maybe a dozen plants out back, so won't be overwintering all of them, but I'll try to bring one or two in -- maybe they'll start blooming earlier! Hummers and flutterbyes have both been seen feeding on them. The blooms are up so high that "customers" are easy to spot!
Very kewl Donna, nice pictures, thanks for sharing.
Liz
Donna,
Just wanted to let you know that I showed my daughter your life stages of the Monarch and she was completely in awe. Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful pictures.
you' are welcome Lily. I need to take the time and make a album for the others too
Monarch cats are great at hiding from the time they emerge from the egg to hiding their crysalis. We had one escape the cat cage we had and crysalis in my daughters room. We finally found it under the tray for her doll high chair. We carefully removed it by the webbing and hung it up inside the cat cage again. One would think w/their bright colors that they would be easily seen, esp. in a room.
I don't know if ya'll go to church or not, but that is a great place to create a butterfly garden. It would be welcoming to new people and a treat for young kids and old ones alike. In fact, there are probably a few that would like to help create it and keep it going. A garden club was formed in our church and we put together a butterfly/hummingbird/songbird landscape - it won an award from the city's Men's Horticulture Club. It also received immediate visitations from butterflies and songbirds. I am unsure if hummingbirds ever showed up.
Donna your pictures are incredible. What an inspiration to keep the butterflies coming to my yard!!
All I can say is ...........quiet of silent awe
xxxx, Carrie
Great pics, Donna--- thanks for posting them! The red spotted purple is especially beautiful.
t.
Great photos!!! That RSP is awesome. I haven't seen one of those this far south. It is truly a beauty!!!
We've got Giant Swallowtails all over the place...of course the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas has lots of citrus groves. I have tangerine, navel orange and ruby red grapefruit trees in my backyard. The GSTs swap out laying eggs on the tangerine and orange...but never touch the grapefruit tree.
~ Cat
Donna
What wonderful pictures.Do all your cats come from your garden?
Nancy
Loved the pics, Donna! I also released a couple of them over the last two days. I've got one more chrysalis. Hope to have more show up on my Black Cherry Trees soon. They're not hard to raise. They don't really eat that much until the last instar. One of my beautiful butterflies:
beautiful Linda.
Yes Nancy they are all cats from my yard