I love your pictures of the Monarchs and milkweeds, tgif!
Daily Butterflies Page 5
Thanks. This pic is from last year. We don't seem to have as many of these this year, but I have spotted a few.
Hi Ginni! Love your Tiger Swallowtail! Nice photo! How nice of you offer up Milkweed seeds to whoever would like some! I have plenty, but perhaps there are others here posting or lurking who would love some. If by chance you get seeds from your Butterfly weed, I'd love some of those! :-) What a magnet for ALL butterflies!
Karen - Yes my butterfly numbers are way down compared to last year. Do you think they know something that we don't know? Like how this hurricane season is going to be? Maybe they've all left town for a good reason. (Hmmmmmmmmm ........)
This message was edited Jun 12, 2007 2:14 PM
I suspect that some it is the lack of rain that keeps the flowers from peak quality, and the heat has contibuted to the problem as well because the pollen can't hold up in the higher temps and therefore doesn't attract the b'flies.
Most of the b'fly action I see here is around the wild flowers that are acclimated to the dry, hot summer here. My planted flower gardens don't do as well, even though I do water them.
I have decided to pretty much leave the flower gardens to fend for themselves. I'll be gathering and spreading seeds from any and all wildflowers in the hopes of keeping things going in the area. After all, the wild flowers got here first, learned to survive, and are always there to feed the b'flies. Who am I to argue with success?! (Besides, I can't afford the water bill for the bought ones!!!)
If the butterflyweed does pod this year I'll try to get you some seed, but I can't make much of a promise there. I have a *real* hard time finding native seed. I have planted 'purchased seeds' before and had limited success with blooms and almost no seed pods, but the wild ones seem to have the best blooms, even though they don't make much seed.
Plenty of Queen Anne seeds, too! Also Blackeyed Susan and a couple of other types of coneheads.
ginni
edited to add - I haven't IDed the cute little critter yet. If anyone knows - chime in!
This message was edited Jun 12, 2007 2:52 PM
Ginni - That may be part of the reason ... drought ..... but at my school we had LOTS of butterflies and it is just as dry there. I'm not really sure why the butterflies and cats seem scarce this year. But your idea certainly would make sense.
And Debnes has tons in her garden and Texas got quite a bit of rain there during the growth months of Spring. So .....
Not sure what your little critter is, but he's certainly got style! :-D
Nice offer, and thanks, Ginni! It's a little too late to be starting seeds here, but I have come to the same realization as you -- the hybridized flowers aren't as popular with the butterflies and they need too much water! Can I hit you up this winter for seed, please? I'd like anything that will grow upright and I have sun and shade both.
Meanwhile, it was a great day for butterflies here FINALLY! I had a lot of giant sulphurs, including, I believe an orange male sulphur....they were all very large for sulphurs, I thought, but it's not like they could be confused with anything else. I could have taken photo, but only of the closed wings and it's the upperside that is so interesting. They are totally unimpressed with my broccoli plants, but the garden center was sold out of cabbage and cauliflower when I went back. Naturally, they are finding the Nasturtiums and I have a lot of eggs already...the sulphur looper cats are sort of gross...a lot of dirty little cats crawling all over each other in a big mass as opposed to a nice big clean swallowtail cats
Then I had a couple of teeeny tiny duskywings , I'm sure they were smaller than they were supposed to be, and maybe it was an entirely different family, I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure what is going on with the sizes of these butterflies if they were duskywings. The duskywings wouldn't keep still long enough to snap a photo.
Just now I saw an Eastern comma (dark form) which I could have taken a photo of if I had had the camera, but of course, I was out working and didn't have it handy...who knew something interesting would drop by? The brushfoots are enamoured with the brick on my house. My new idea is to smear bananas all over it since I'm not having a lot of luck with the banana bait in a jug formula. Or maybe I should go get a pile of horse poop....it's a lot cheaper than keeping bananas at 48c a pound. ROTFL!
Suzy
Suzy - are you in the addy? I'll be happy to send you some seed. By Ma Nature's rule you should be able to just scatter them anytime and have them come up next year. At least, I've never had a lack of any of the milkweed types! For me, butterfly weed seed (also a milkweed, by the way) is the hardest to come by, and trying to dig up a plant is a job for the army. The tap root goes to *China*!!!!
I'd go ahead and try the "horse poo soup" if I were you! I'll bet it will work! Just brush it on - the smell won't last too long. The b'flies are after the minerals and salt - they don't really care about how it got there. Just as long as they can stick their little curly ques into it, they're happy.
I have never been real good at the names, I just like to watch them. And I have noticed that it seems easier to get a decent photo of one on a wildflower than it is on a garden flower. They seems to linger longer in the wild fields. I still think it has to do with the climate and quality of the pollen and nectar. The wildflowers do better!
I'll see what I can get tomorrow
ginni
Yes, I know about the tap roots on those things! No way you can transplant one unless it's a teeny baby, but the garden center sells them. I was under the impression Monarchs couldn't use A. tuberosa -- the orange garden variety -- as a host, just nectar. Do you know?
Yes, Please send some, and yes, I'm in the address exchange under " i ". Do you know what kind of milkweed it is, or what color? I germinated some pink kind A. syrica or something and planted it down aways away because it is a roadside weed. I sowed some Silky Red and Silky Yellow mix from Becky for the garden, but it didn't germinate yet.
Thanks!
Suzy
Hi Y'all! Interesting conversation you are having. I am STILL planting seeds here and the plants are still coming up! And it is HOT here! Some plants can take the abuse and it seems that many butterfly host and nectar plants can do just that! The hybrid plants don't usually do as well or don't germinate for me at all.
Suzy - Congrats on the butterflies showing up! Always a surprise to me, too! I don't know if you are referring to me or another Becky here on DG, but I don't remember sending you MW seeds. But if I did, it was probably Scarlet Milkweed, not the silky cultivar. (I usually send folks seeds that I grow in my own garden, not trades I have received.) Hopefully they will sprout for you soon!
Ginni - LOL about the horse poo soup! I still haven't tried the butterfly bait that you can make. Don't know if it would draw butterflies to my yard either.
I really haven't a clue as to what kind any of this is. I'm fairly sure there are at least 3 varieties of milkweed that grow in this area - probably many more! - but I haven't looked any of them up. To me, if it drips white "milk" when I break off a leaf - it's milkweed! I'm just not a scientific type person.
I'll get some more picture of the plant and maybe you can narrow it down.
Hey, Becky - ya gotta try out a lot of stuff to get the little darlings to come to ya. I have several "recipes" that I will be trying out, but for now my "life schedule" has me running, so I'm just glad the wildflowers are out there!
ginni
The bait didn't work for me until it sat for a couple weeks, then it had the yuck foam floating and I scooped it up and within a few minutes they were there. Guess it wasn't stinky enough at first! I was able to get within inches to take pictures and at one point fed one some of the goo on my finger!
That's pretty neat, Sheila! I will eventually get around to trying it. I keep having visions of the jug exploding the bait everywhere! LOL!
I don't find it doing much Becky, I open it about 2 times a week and there isn't any build up of pressure yet. I made it about a month ago. My DH took some more pictures before I got home yesterday. He is enjoying it as much as me! LOL!
I found these on my Oak Leaf Hydrangea bush! Can anyone verify what they are? Tent cats maybe?? I have never had them before, but we found some on both of our Bradford Pear Trees and I see neighbors that have them in other trees too.
Sheila - I can't tell what they are from your photo. Is it possible to get a closer shot of one of the cats?
Tell your dh that he got a great shot of the butterflies on the bait! I guess y'all are talking me into making some. Most of the butterflies you are attracting, I have rarely if ever seen in my yard ..... so good reason to try it! :-)
Only the bushfoots are attracted to it from what Debnes says. She has the recipe on her website. She gave her link a few posts back here: http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=3601350
Here is a cropped pic, they have a black head at this stage. No time to take one this am...work calls.
Thanks, Sheila! Debnes website is great because she did photos of the steps! I'm a visual person so I love it! I also found a post from Tabasco where she cut and pasted the recipe from our own Cat (TexasPuddyPrint):
http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=2008615
I now have BOTH posts saved to my favorites! Boy! I love that feature!! I have been saving all kinds of posts here on DG and renaming them so that I can FINALLY find them! Whoo Hoo!!
Get a closer photo later if you can and post it. Thanks!
Okay, I thought I'd report here, except there were no butterflies today except a skipper and a white sulphur. So, dog & I went to the Indy Parks Butterfly Meadow, and guess what? They didn't have any butterflies, either except a few white sulphurs! I asked the park director what was up and he said they hadn't been seeing many at all this year and blamed it on the drought. (I feel vindicated here)
Suzy
Can anyone confirm id of this one I found flitting around on the grass this morning? My guess is that it's a phaon crescent.
I also saw a black swallowtail and some cats on the parsley.
I also saw this skipper enjoying the ruellia and posing on a hibiscus leaf. If you can tell what kind of skipper it is, please let me know. Thanks!
This message was edited Jun 13, 2007 8:52 PM
It was a good butterfly day for me--- Of course I managed to catch a Zebra LW on the Cnidoscolus aconitifolius this morning. BTW I am trying to root a little piece of p. suberosa that I accidentally broke off. So far it looks good. Shall we auction it off if it actually roots? (Just kidding)
Here is one more of zebra lw by the p. suberosa.
Great pics snuzer!
Becky..That is a good link of Cat's too. I forgot to take the pic this afternoon. Had to make a trip to buy groceries, and just now getting online.
Just before I went though, one of Debnes' Gulf Fritillary cats eclosed and I released it. Tried to take pics but couldn't get a good one. I enjoyed seeing it though.
Snuzer- That looks totally different from the "suberosa" that I grow....Hmmmm!
You've got lots of action, though! Great!!
Adrienne
I think this is the one Snuzer has.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/3079/
Yes, that's right. MIne is so small, but it is growing a little.
Snuzer- is your vine really old? Maybe thats why the leaves look different?? The Dave's link shows the leaves that I have...
Adrienne
I am wondering too, Adrienne.....
When I was growing my Maypops from seed and many are still young vines, the leaves looked different, but as the plant got thicker and older the leaves changed into what I call the adult, mature leaves that is consistent with Maypops. Ironically, all the ones that were finally transplanted into the ground at the end of last year still have the "immature" leaves. And so do some vines in the thick jumbled mess on the other side of my yard. I would have thought by now that all would have mature leaves since they are ALL over a year old. Interesting .... I wonder what causes the leaves to mature?
I took this photo just now to show you how different the leaves look that are all from the same vine. Weird, huh?
My vine is very young. I received it as a cutting from a naba meeting last fall.
Those leaves look like the leaves of another passion vine I have. My vines have are all still very young and small. I had one that grew quite large before Wilma, but when we got our new fence, I was unable to save it. The gf cats devour the leaves on the "maypop" type passion vine, they grow back and then are eaten again. The vine looks pretty sad and has had very few blooms, so I cannot tell you what type of passiflora it really is.
I looked again at several of the photos on the link. artcons shows one "from a cutting, ready to go in the ground" that looks a lot like mine. There was another photo from zemerson that showed 2 different leaf shapes on the same vine.
This message was edited Jun 14, 2007 9:36 AM
This message was edited Jun 14, 2007 11:50 AM
Here is my other embarrassing passion vine. I just cannot seem to grow these things big! You see it already has a gf cat ready to devour the few tender fresh leaves that it has!
Snuzer, is that black metal trellis in full sun? It may be that the vine is being burned? I learned this the hard way myself last summer, and have since switched to a wooden trellis. My PFVine is going great guns this year .... fingers firmly crossed, of course.
Carla
You might be right. I will see what I can do. Perhaps i can switch it with one that is in a shadier location.
Carla - I never thought of that! Good deduction. Maybe that is why my Passion vine is outta control along my fence. It's white vinyl. And the roots are shaded by other plants in front of it. Hmmmmm ...... perfect conditions for invasiveness! LOL!
Hey Sheila!
Your doing great with the frits, congrats on the new one.. You will prpbably find some empty chrysalids all over your garden. ... Oh, and on the 'brew'... Many, but not all brushfoots like the brew. For instance Gulf Frits are brushfoot, and they prefer to nectar flowers. When you read a species whose adult food is rotting fruit and dung, "fruit feasters", those are the ones who depend on food like our brew.
Amazing pics everybody!! I have been out a couple days working on the deck and gazebo.. It is finally finished. We still need to go pick out furniture, and quite a bit of straightening up. My SIL went back to Houston yesterday and took my grandson, (his son) with him for the summer, :-). We had a housefull here.
In the last few days we released a few GFrits, and a few Black STs. The Orange Dogs are getting bigger..about 1" long now, and the GST came back a few times since and oviposited even more. I am very excited (psyched even), about the numbers of Giant ST's. I see many have been snatched away, but she is steadily laying eggs. The Zanthoxylum Josephine gave me is over in the corner under the Privet, and it seems like a safer spot so far. There are 3 of them on the plant. I have 2 in containers like these in second instar now.
The gazebo has a sheer curtain all the way around, that can be zipped up. It was pretty cool releasing the BSTs in there so I could take a few pics before they flew away. One was male and one was female, but they didn't mate right away. I suppose the phermone isn't emitted right away as it is with Gulf Frits.
Here she is>
Here he is>
