DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 7

Continued from: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/735395/
Thanks Becky, You're right... 150 is way over! My comp has been playing up so much I haven't been able to watch as well. I can't say how impressed I am with all the pictures you guys have been posting!! Wowswers! Snuzer what a lovely Julia! I hope I can stay on long enough to post a few pics myself, LOL!

Yesterday I caught this little one out of the corner of my eye while coming up the sidewalk... I dropped all my sacks and purse to get some shots of it. So tiny!! I suppose some of them are much bigger than this, but I have not seen any before in person to have any reference.

Clearwing Moth>

This message was edited Apr 17, 2008 6:20 AM

This little thing buzzed every spire of the White Buddleia.. Here it is hugging one of them>

And now to give you an idea of just how small it was.. Here sharing a cluster with a Pearl Crescent, which is one of the smaller butterflies>

:-Deb

I love the hummingbird moths! I haven't seen mine lately, though. :(
Yesterday, I found this little hackberry (?) enjoying the lantana ....

then, he decided to hang out on the wall for a bit...

Greats pic Lily!! That is actually an American Lady butterfly. I love those!! There are at least 3 types of Lady butterflies here in USA.. Painted Lady, West Coast Lady, and yours.... American Lady. Note the 2 large eye spots in the underside of the lower wing..
Very beautiful!

:-Deb

I wish I could identify butterflies as well as you can Deb.
Here's an Eastern Black Swallowtail on lantana. He fluttered on every flower, not staying to sip though. He kept coming back to the Lantana for a drink.

Thanks Deb!
I definitely need to get a book to help me identify these butterflies!!

Deb, what a cute Hummingbird moth. I saw my first of the season over the weekend. They always make me think of flying lobsters!

Am I nuts for buying fruit specifically for the butterflies? Last week I bought a handful of bananas and let them rot in my kitchen. Then I mashed them up and slathered them all over logs in my flowerbeds. A Hackberry Emperor landed on the container at one point, I guess I wasn't doling it out fast enough! At one point I counted 14 HEs and 4 QuestionMarks on the banana mash. This week I've bought more bananas to rot, a container of figs to rot, and one apple to rot. I'm sure that my neighbors think I'm insane.

Edited to add that I also saw an American Snout on the mash.

Carla

This message was edited Jul 3, 2007 10:42 AM

Carla, i see buying fruit no different than spending a king's ransom on flowers and seeds! LOL

Amen, Deborah! I will be doing the rotting bananas and other fruit as well. I'm not sure where to place the plate of fruit? Shade or sun? This is easier for me than the Butterfly brew which I know I would forget to vent and then KABOOM! everywhere! That has been the only reason I haven't made it yet. LOL!

I like the idea of the rotting fruit rather than 'the brew', I'm afraid it will blow....then the neighbors will have me committed.....they already talk because I cut the grass, between the flowerbed border and the lawn, with scissors. LOL The weed eater breaks off the flowers that hang over the edge....it has nothing to do with being obssessive!

Here's a Horace's Duskywing, I think.

I'm glad I'm not the only one down on both knees with scissors! That's the only way I can trim around lithrope.

This might be a Whirlabout...the Skippers are so hard to id...there are so many!

And a BST, the Buddleia is a favorite of all of them.

Beautiful photos, Rox! I love your little skipper! Too cute! :-)

I'll play...

Tiger Swallowtail on what's left of the monarda.

Silver Spotted Skipper and I think a Sachem's Skipper on zinnia

Broken Dash Skipper..(not sure if it's northern or southern)..on oregano.

Lovely photos, Melody! I saw my first Silver Spotted Skipper only very recently. They are beauties.

Carla

Great pics Melody, love the Tiger ST and the little Skippers.....aren't there a zillion different kinds?

Thanks Becky!

Haha cordeled! Glad I'm not the only one!

Thanks ya'll...

The Oregano is blooming, and if you don't have any...you need some. It's a great bug magnet. Butterflies, bees..(yep, I've got honeybees) nectar loving beetles, moths and wasps swarm the stuff.

It has an incredibly long bloom period and attracts tons of stuff. I have had Buckeyes, Checkerspots, both types of Painted Ladies, Hairstreaks of various kinds...and about a gazillion Skippers, just to name a few.

I am working with a professor at Western KY University at the moment trying to get all of the different Skippers i.d.'d and documented...it's a job for sure!

Good luck with that Melody, that will be a challenge!

This is a guess of a Pearl Crescent.

What a rewarding job, Melody! You'll be making history.

Why is it y'alls butterflies sitll perfectly still for your shots! LOL Great pictures worthy of mounting.

Gotta get some Oregano!

I watch at the grocery stores - I picked up a bag of overripe (I'm talking black) bananas once for 99 cents - there were 16 bananas in the bag. I just tossed them in the freezer and used them as needed. Several loaves of banana nut bread and lots of butterfly food. I really wish I had gotten both of the bags they had there at the time.

My problem is that there is so much shade around my house that its hard to get the things I need to grow here. So now I'm working on an area of open field that I can see out to the side. There are a number of different wildflowers already out there. I want to add some feeder stations using old logs and other natural things that will bring in the b'flies and the birds.

I have been out several times over the last week taking pictures, but haven't gotten them set up to post here. I hope I've gotten a good showing to brag about before too long.
ginni

You'll have plenty of pictures to share taking shots from a naturalized wildflower meadow! Native plants in a field like yours will be a butterfly haven. Warming rocks, a rotting fruit stand, host and native nectar plants, gosh, you'll have fun in the sun!

I'll have a ball, but The trick will be to actually get pictures instead of just sitting there staring at them!

This whole endeavor will be long term. I have a lot of pre work to do, but if it works like I want, I will have masses of butterflies and more birds than I can capture on film.

Then there all my trips down to Noxubee Wildlife Refuge about 10 miles south of me. Those trips are always rewarding. I'm working on a couple of the Rangers to help me "spread the seeds"! and I should, in time, be able to expand my wildflowers and, thereby, my wildlife inhabitants. I already enjoy visits from some Piliated Woodpeckers, Red Cockaded Woodpeckers and many other delightful creatures. We have several meadows and lots of wooded areas of mixed hardwood and pine. We never cut dead trees unless they are a danger to a building or power line. These dead trees are a major source of food for the woodpeckers and other birds as well. It would really be a "feather in my cap" if one of the pairs of eagles ever moves up here, but I don't really hold my breath for that day - just a dream of mine.

The trick will be to make sure they keep their alligators down there!!!!

I do so enjoy the wildlife - even the leopard (frogs that is!)
ginni

I'll definitely have to try the overripe bananas.
Ok, I'm on vacation this week, and thought, hey, now would be a good time to do laundry, since I'm going out this evening. So, I look out my window to find a find a female tiger swallowtail (I think), but nothing to wear for the occasion, except for my nightshirt. Please tell me that I'm not the only one who has gone outside in the middle of the day with only a nightshirt on to take a picture of a butterfly!! I'm glad my neighbors work during the day!!

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a great shot because she was fluttering her wings like crazy. Maybe she was excited to find food since the quarry just mowed the meadow behind my house?

one more....

Lily -- nope, you're not the only one running outside in her nightgown!! Your photo is lovely and definitely worth running outside in nightclothes in order to get! :-)

Carla

indiana_lily, your post on another thread of your female Tiger Swallowtail just made me stop to think. From my above post, could what I thought was a BST actually be a female Tiger? I believe some Tiger females can be both yellow like the males or black. But how do you tell the difference and know the difference from a BST? I've got a lot to learn.

I feel much better now, Loonie1!

Cordeledawg, I may be wrong. Because here, we have the Tiger Swallowtails and Eastern Black Swallowtail. I know that with the Tiger Swallowtails, the females can act as "mimics" to thwart attacks by birds and such, so they are black in color, which is not appetizing to the birds. These two different butterflies are, in my opinion, very hard to tell the difference. And, I'm such a newbie at this, and have been wrong so many times before, that I could be wrong again. :)

Here's a couple more Oregano 'addicts'.

Gray Hairstreak.....

Eight Spotted Forester Moth

Juniper Hairstreak

Peck's Skipper

Melody - Your photos are fabulous! Thanks for jumping in here and posting them!

heh, heh, heh....I just got high speed cable...and wireless that allows me to use my laptop over at our office...I've been trudging along with dial-up all these years and uploading images was painful to say the least. I saved my image uploads mostly for PlantFiles and BugFiles....just posting on a thread was hard to do.....I'm finally having fun!!!!

Here's a Checkerspot I caught yesterday. On the Oregano again. It's right outside the office door and I just keep my camera on the desk....

Melody - Your photos are so sharp and close-up! Some nice species of butterfly that I don't see here.
So .... Melody...... any chance of me asking you for a seed trade for some seeds of your Oregano? I had no idea that they would like the blooms so much. I have Basil & Tarragon and the bees are all over it. Very territorial in fact, but I have never seen butterflies on either of the blooms.

What about a hunk you can just plant? This stuff spreads pretty fast and I'm always trying to contain it. It spreads by underground runners like a mint.

You ought to see the critters on mine. It actually hums with insect noise...the Skippers are in constant motion. I've had a Buckeye that has spent the whole day with me. Lots of great bugs.

When would be the best transplant time for you?

Thanks for the comments on my images...I try hard.