Daily Butterflies Page 5

Continued from http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/724871/

Thanks for joining while I post pics of daily butterflies around the garden. I hope you will feel free to chime in and post what's in your garden too! Thanks to all who have been sharing your pictures.. The more the merrier!

:-Deb

Here's a friendly little Pearl Crescent summit lunch atop a bloom. I have seen so many of these the last couple days.. They probably used one of the asters as a host, and I obviously missed that part or I would have posted it by now. No doubt there will be a lot of this sort of sneaky activity going on in the garden this year. Will have to investigate when I get a chance.

No need to apologize, Deb! Ty for all your encouragement. It's great to be around people who really enjoy the butterflies and their plants.(Continued from p.4) I enjoy posting the pictures. I planted a bunch of aster seeds- annuals. They have just germinated so it will be awhile, but maybe they will be useful for more than providing a little extra color in the garden! Thes are Lowe's Garden select Ballet Mixed Colors....We shall see....

Your all heart snuzer!
Yes, I think they like all kinds of Aster, they might just take what's being served. So far they aren't making a big scene doing it. hehe.
Just like the Skippers getting more prolific... All over the place.. I'm seeing more and more as the season goes on.

I can't get over their big eyes! Just too cute of a flutterby!

I've been calling this a Firey Skipper so far. There are so many different skippers, sometimes they are the most challenging to ID. This one found the new Vitex blooms.

I have this picture of tattered Tiger Swallowtail female lighter form. The range of color for females is from almost white to a dark vanilla color,, OR... The Black form of female TST. Even with a bite out of her she is a good example to show the difference between male and female with so much blue.. Compare the blue with the pic below of the lower wing of a male.

Here is his lower wing.. only a couple small blue spots. Some males have a lottle more blue, but it gets easier to tell when you look for it. If any of you have some TST pics please share them.

Deb, just went back to the last thread and saw the three hatching cats. http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=3584948
Becky said to separate them, can you maybe use the small glass canning jars with the tule and the metal ring to hole in place right now? They are so small right now, and it would give you time for your others to eclose and your cages empty and cleaned.
Sheila

To keep from repeating post which Dave frowns on, please take a peek at my first shots of a bst laying eggs on the previous page. I'm so excited I just had to share and failed to check the previous post for forwarding.

This is the smallest bf or moth, don't know which, that I ever seen. About the size of a man's thumb nail. Anyone know the name?

Deb - Cute! Itty, bitty little fella! Love your sunflower! Cute photo!

Congrats, too, on the BST eggs! You'll enjoy raising them! They are almost as much fun as Monarch cats! lol

Rest easy, All cats are in separate containers. Thank you Becky and Sheila!:-) So far still alive & crawling. Their appetite will likely kick in later today or tomorrow. I put Z. clava they hatched on inside, plus a fresh lemon leaf in each one too. There is a fourth cat now as well.. Going to get more containers in a bit. The GST eggs that hatched yesterday were oviposited June 1 pic below. A couple (I know of), still haven't hatched yet.

We released 5 Gulf Fritillaries today. All were perfect except 1 that was trying to hang there with the end of it's chrysalis still stuck over it's behind and bottom of wings. So I gently slipped it off. Let him remain for about 10 more minutes then released him too. There are around 7 more left to eclose in a day or few.

:-D

Hey Deborah! Great going with BST!! Yaaay. I had the page open posting (got interruped here), and then I saw your post etc. So happy for you!


Here is another cat today...(GST).

Here is the one frit that had it's chrysalis stuck on his hiney.. He could fly pretty well, but it was so windy, the wind swept him to the ground, so I picked him up and carried him over to a Zinnia where there was good footing. Seemed to be very content there. :-D

A Gray Hairstreak rubbing it's wings together....

Pearl Crescent taking down some Verbena..

Deb, what's GST? In your picture of that tiny itsy-bitsy cat, do they stay that small?

Things aren't going too well here -- no butterflies at all today. I should have lots and lots of them, and I don't. I have checked all pansies and violets (I have several species) and no Frittilary cats or eggs that I could see. The parsley & fennel are bare. The Asclepias curvassica seed is just sitting there in the pot...probably too hot to germinate, so I threw out some swamp milkwed seed on the ground in desperation. I also sowed every Zinnia seed I had onto every bare place I could find.

It's very windy here, too...maybe 40 mph? I need to get some rotting fruit again. The raccoons get it at night, so it's not exactly working. They can climb anything, so unless i get somehting on a teeny-tiny chain and suspend it waaaaay above the ground, I am out of luck.

Suzy

I hear ya Suzy.. (silly racoon lol.) The wind is really throwing things around here.. not 40, more like 25-30. It's like a blowdryer out there! I will have to soak the yard down really good tonight. The Asclepias might be best to try finding at a local store already growing, at this point in the season.

Deb, A GST is a Giant Swallowtail.. They are tiny for only a short time, then they get big fast. A little bigger than Black ST, and they look like a big blob of bird dropping.
http://davesgarden.com/bf/showimage/3594/

:-Deb

Deb, what a fabulous photo of the Pearl Crescent. You can even see the little blob of orange on the end of his antennae. Neat!

Carla

Smiling @ Carla :-)

Thanks!

Went out yesterday moring to this GF waiting to be released.

It flew to the fountain first...

Then flew to the Milkweed.. Then I picked him up and carried him over to the Zinnia.... Sometimes I like to see if they will let me pick them up after they are released. I think its good to instill trust if I can. When they come back after traveling I can often recognize them, bc they will fly up and hover face to face with me. :-)

Ooo"Ahh, now that's yummie, Zinnia juice!"ooO

Two different Buckeyes came by ...

This one>

And this one.... someone tried to take a bite of....

There was a pretty BST ovipositing on the Parsley and Fennel..

Several Tiger ST males were in the Vitex.. I focussed the camera and only one was still on.

The Tigers tried to chase the female Black ST to see if she was a Tiger too... no dice! So far not very many female Tigers at all. There is a good balance of male to female Black ST's though.

Here a male BST>

Then there were lots of these sweet little Skippers...

Loads of Pearl Crescents again too...

Here is anothe one of the new guys released the day before yesterday coming back.. He was one of the larger of them. Wings still very pristine and bright..

Hopefully we can finish the deck today, and get the Gazebo up too. There's alread a new batch of Black ST's forming on the plants out there. I will probably collect all I can today, and give a count later.
Yesterday was a super day for Bflies.. there were several other species, I wasn't able to get pics of all.

:-Deb

This message was edited Jun 9, 2007 6:36 AM

Deb - Awesome! Your gardens are a butterfly magnet!!! I have seen very little action in my yard this past month. I think they all went away on vacation to your house!!! lol

You need to take a wide photo of your backyard. I am curious about something. My yard still has a lot of open area, few trees, some bushes, etc. I am wondering how densely planted your yard is. I am thinking that may have something to do with the number of butterflies coming around. Though last year I had quite a few butterflies here. (I sure hope it isn't because of the Cuban Tree Frogs eating them! Grrrr....)

I love all your photos! This is the only thing I could get a picture of so far this morning.

Sue - One photo is worth a thousand words! Beautiful!!! Love those Zebra Longwing butterflies!!!

Thanks Becky!

I love the pic of your ZLW!! Wish I could get them here to my house.. Map says they come to FWorth.
Another thing I think attracts the bf's besides all the nectar plants, is the bare ground in my back yard mixed with the 'jungle'. I will get another panorama shot later on today, Becky. :-S

Thanks, Deb. When I walked outside a minute ago, I found this on my Flaming Glory Bower blossom. That is the first time I have seen any bf on this plant.

Sue - Looks like a Monarch butterfly to me! NICE!!!! :-) Do ya have Milkweed in your garden?

Yes. I have about 6-8 plants.

Absolutely wonderful series of photos!

Send some of those cuties up my way! I am trying to be patient for our BFs arrivals, but your pretty pics are not helping!