DAILY Butterflies Page 25

Time for a new thread, I let #24 get way too full! http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/790997/
Keep on showing me what you have where you live. I love to see them!

Well it IS Texas after all....... Who knew we'd have more warm weather, and butterfly season is not quite over yet? Today several Gulf Fritillaries blew in, and this female was ovipositing all over one of the passionvines. She chose the one closer to the deck like a good little momma. The pv's on the back fence are much bigger, but this one is warmer. Pretty smart frit huh?

debnes

This guy was waiting nearby in case she needed anything. But she had it well under control, LOL!

Red Admirals puddling around...

More Red Admirals on the brew log...

Another Frit having some buddleia

A little Dun Skipper.. slurping up some Salvia greggii..

Ok I had some other species, but didn't get all their pictures.. Some Cloudless Sulphurs migrating through to name a few.. I can't say I am too surprised about a late brood.. The female Gulf Frit at the top of this thread looked as though she had just eclosed from a chrysalis and part of her was stuck in it a little too long and it damaged her wing. Being newly eclosed would explain her frantic efforts to lay as many eggs as possible where there is plenty of passionvine.

That's it for now!! Your turn to post words and/or post pics! :-)

debnes

Wow, you had a great bf day today! Fun to see your pics!

Great pictures, I need to make one of those brew logs. Haven't had many bf's around lately, but I've been planting stuff for when they return!
Cathy

I guess I need to put out some brew. I haven't put any out in quite a while now.

The pic with the Red Admiral puddling...what's he puddling on? Do you have a certain area that you put stuff? When we had our new well put in, there was a bunch of cement-y area left from the groutng of the well. For a while, whenever it rained, often I noticed bf's puddling there, getting the minerals from the cement mixture I guess.
Cathy

Uh! Superfantastic, Debnes. Such photos are something I have never tried. I'm going to start looking for butterfiles, skippers, moths, even tho it's a little late in the season. When I plant someTexas flowers next year, I may even look for a chrysalis to nurse. Thank you for inviting me.

Martha

debnes -- Wow, so envious of you and your BF collection - IN DECEMBER. ...... :^)
( I guess that's one good thing about living in Texas ) Just kidding.......
I would have never dreamed that ya'll still be haaving BF come around, but I guess with the warm weather, that it's probably very normal. (sigh) Cant' wait till next year, with lots of opportunites for new plants, and for new BF.

Thanks so much for everyone who shares their pics.
I'm sure that my BF season is done.
I do have four or more Black Swallowtail Chrysillids outside, and I know they're good and ready for Spring.

Good night.

Deb...you are so right. The Red Admirals have been hitting the butt-brew here too.

Have an old hanging pot of which the plant I had in it long since died...so I just toss fruit scraps on the soil and let the butterflies and bees have at it. I added some brew to it yesterday and when I stepped outside this morning I saw three RAs on it. There are days that those butterflies are just so skittish that it's hard to get a photo of them. Guess they were feeling a bit loaded from hitting the brew so early that they actually stayed put for some photos :o)

I haven't seen a GF in days!!! Such good news to see they are ovipositing in your yard!! Woohoo!!!

Must say, was thrilled to have seen a Zebra Longwing frequenting the lantana this morning.

~ Cat

here's a photo of three RAs

This message was edited Dec 6, 2007 10:57 PM

...the Zebra Longwing :o)

~ Cat

...and a cute little Mexican Fruit Fly. These guys are really small but I can't help but admire the beauty of their golden body and wings, fluorescent green eyes and that eye-catching orange dot right between their eyes!

~ Cat

ps...also read on our local butterfly list server that another One-Spotted Prepona (2nd U.S. record), Blomfild's Beauty, Common Banner, Guatemalan Cracker and a Tropical Greenstreak were seen today. The not so common and rarities are still showing up in south Texas. It should only get better this coming week. Hard to imagine a few nights ago it was 46 degrees at night and a balmy 90 degrees during the day!

Lepidoptera lovers, I had Entomology 101 in college, but I know nothing about what these gorgeous insects eat and how they behave. Enlighten me. What is a brew log? (don't laugh).

Martha

Cathy~ The Red Admiral is puddling on the ground.. My back yard is kinds rugged and there is no mowing grass, so the ground is exposed in places. Plus I put down decomposed Granite on the pathways, and in other places bark and mulch materials. All of these provide a little something for them to slurp up and warm themselves on in the sunshine.

Wow Cat!! How cool about the One-Spotted Prepona, Blomfield's Beauty, Common Banner, Guatemalan Cracker and a Tropical Greenstreak! Awesome to see the rarities! I love the shot of the ZLW on the Lantana! Gorgeous!

Yeah Martha Lepidoptera is a field all in itself. Unless it is studied intensely a lot of entomologists don't understand it.

We start by planting their specific larval host plants based on the particular butterflies in our respective ranges. Plug your county in this site: http://butterfliesandmoths.org/map?x=216&y=168&_fc=1 then click "show location". This will basically show you which butterflies have been reported in your county. Most folks in our area of the South begin with Black Swallowtails, Monarchs/Queens, Sulphurs, and Gulf Fritillaries. Another way to do this is to plant nectar flowers and see which butterflies come into your yard. When you know what will come, plant their larval host and after a time or two visiting you should get an egg laying female. The females come and lay their eggs in season, and we watch everything that happens. One species at a time or several at once, we eventually learn all their little butterfly quirks and the best ways to conserve them.

Common Mississippi Butterflies include:
Black Swallowtails: Parsley and Carrot Family herbs
Monarchs & Queens: Asclepias (Milkweed)
Sulphurs: Cassias ans Sennas
Gulf Fritillaries: Passionvines

When we plant the larval hosts above the butterflies are drawn in and it is usually the males who hang around first because they know it's where the females will come to lay their eggs. Once your yard is marked with their scent they come more and more.

I posted a brew recipe on my little website:
http://www.theletteroflove.com/wallpaper/index.php?paged=4
This is for fruit feasting butterflies that do not really nectar on flowers much or ever. Red Admirals will drink from flowers and drink brew also. If you make it you will see which ones prefer the rotten fruit where you live... Questions Marks, Mourning Cloaks, and many other beauties are among them.

debnes

Debnes, your website is absolutely fascinating as well as beautiful. What kind of camera do you use?

Do local nurseries sell milkweed? I've got to have some!

I took this photo of an insect on my Clara Curtis mum today. Can anybody ID the bug?

Y'all, I'm going to hang around this captivating thread!

Martha

Another view.

Oops, same photo above. Here's another.

Watch out Martha, we're addictive!

I released my final Gulf Frit the other day. They're so pretty when they're fresh. All of my Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars have gone into their chrysalis. I already miss the little fellas. Meanwhile, Mom has been letting the ZST butterflies go throughout the week. At least now I have an opportunity to clean the butterfly house.

Across from the county center where I work downtown is a one-square block park. They have a Southern Red Cedar so I'll keep my eyes open for those little green hairstreaks that use that as a host. But what got me excited was to see that the coonties were bursting open their cones and dumping seeds all over. After work, I took a plastic baggie from my lunch and collected a whole bunch of them. So tomorrow I have some cleaning and sowing to do. Eventually, I'd like to acquire some Atala Hairstreaks and raise them.

Here's another pic of my Gulf Frit friend. I never realized how silvery their spots are until I released my first one.

Melanie

Melanie, your little Gulf Frit is looking up and talking to you!!! What did he say? Dazzling pic. What cameras do you all use?

Martha

According to the folks on here you're supposed to make a wish when you release a butterfly. I like to think he was listening to me! I have a Kodak Easyshare model C743. I was one of those crazy people outside Best Buy last year on the day after Thanksgiving. Nothing tempted me this year though.

Martha -- don't know which exact species your little fly is, but I believe it is some type of hover fly.

Great pics everyone.

Melanie, I recently bought a Kodak EasyShare Z812 IS, but I can't take beautiful closeups like you. Can you tell me what settings you use?

Martha

It took me a while to figure mine out. I use the setting that looks like a tulip. Then, you have to work out the right balance between the distance from you and the subject and the zoom. The zoom has that little "wide to tight" scale and I find it takes the best closeups when it gets to the orange part of the scale, but not all the way to the tightest setting. Just play with it a lot. I still take a lot of bad photos to get one good one.

Sometimes "auto" does work better than the tulip setting even if you think you're close enough to use the tulip. I've also had to learn to hold still and sometimes the Florida sun is way too bright so I have to lower that setting. Mostly, I just let the camera do it's own thing. I'm not very good at all the settings so I tried to get a camera that would do it for me.

I think your photos above look pretty good. Just keep practicing and playing with it and you'll get used to it. And I really do take a lot of bad photos to get a good one!

Melanie, that's a big help. I do not have an orange part to my scale, but I do have wide to tight. With the tulip icon, what mode do you use (manual or scene or auto)?

I have a tripod I can use for steadiness. With the little insect on the mum photo above, I could not get closer than about a foot. Any closer blurred the pic, but I didn't use W to T. I guess I do need more practice. Thanks a bunch.

Martha

pssst...the 'tulip' icon means macro mode :o) Have noticed most cameras will take a really good photo at a zoom of 2.1 to 2.3 and step in a close as you can get without losing the focus. Well at least that works on my Sony DSC H-9. Learned that from other leps out here that have the previous models of the Sony DSC H-3, H-5 and H-7.

I have way too many cameras...wish I could just stick to one. I wasn't waiting outside of Best Buy either - I worked the port of entry Thanksgiving night until 10pm then had to go back in for the 6am shift the following morning...UGH!!! The amount of traffic and pedestrians was ridiculous. Can't understand how people say they have no money and no job yet always manage to cross over into the US to go 'shopping' at all hours of the day and night?!

Oh well, good thing I can buy online at any time :o) Got my most recent camera (Sony DSC H-9) last year. Had pre-ordered it and waited with bated breath (wait, I'm a cat...shouldn't that be breath like bait? ROLF!) for it to arrive.

Am fairly happy with it...still has some quirks I dislike but it will do until another catches my eye.

Melanie...Gotta love those Gulf Frits!!! It truly is amazing how silvery the undersides look. I really enjoy seeing photos when that salmon coloring peeks out on the forewing. Still haven't seen a GF around my yard in weeks.

Martha...Don't know what that little bug is...big eyes like a fly of sorts?
Hope you get a chance to make some butterfly brew and set it out for the butterflies in your area. Most of the butterflies from the brushfoot family will come to bait...as well as an assortment of beetles and even moths during the night.

Here's one of my favorite beetles. The Harlequin Flower Beetle (Gymnetis caseyi).

~ Cat

Aawk! Gorgeous beetle photo, Cat. That white against black definition is absolutely striking. I see houseflies are attracted to the brew too.

A DGer from England identified my bug as a Hover Fly, which is what Pford confirmed earlier.

LOL. "Baited cat breath"

I almost bought a Canon S5 IS. I also spied the Kodak Z710. But ended up with the Z812 IS. This is my first camera since an old digital Olympus given to me. So I'm new not only at Lepidoptera watching, but camera shooting as well. Debnes gave me sooo much good info in her posting above. I'm hot to trot!

Martha

I've used both the tulip and the flower setting on mine for closeup photos on my Easyshare Z740. It's an odd camera and I still don't know much about how to use it correctly even though I've had it quite a while. Those little manuals that come with these cameras are so worthless! I only know one way to transfer my photos to the Kodak software on the PC, using the transfer bar on the dock. What a pain! Then I have to open the pics I want to use with the HP photo software, that let's me edit and then save to My Pictures while in edit mode. I really like to play with it in edit mode until the photo is the way I want it. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to use those little buttons on top of the camera. I took this photo recently...an American Basketflower blooming in December, how very weird that is! This has been a mixed-up weather year around here and this kind of plant normally blooms only in summer here.

Glad you are hanging with us Martha! The thread is slowing up a bit now, but you can go back to the previous ones with the links at the first post of each thread. There is a lot of good info on the early ones especially.
Here is my best pic to date of a bf that I raised this year. It is a Great Swallowtail that didn't want to fly away. The camera is my DH's Nikon D50, automatic setting (I am not good with the manual settings).

Thanks martha this thread is as good as the folks who post in it! I was hoping to get a good cross section and variety, over this season and we surely have that! Most of us are pretty busy with our butterflies and gardening for them, and after a long day it made more sense to have just the one thread for me instead of starting a new one with each sighting. Another thing is we see other things, like birds and related creatures and we can post those in here without getting too sidetracked because we always come back to butterflies. It can be a hassel to go in another forum that many leps just don't go to that much just to post one or two pics. I am interested in all wildlife!
Paul thinks your little fly is a hoverfly, and i will go with that until I can look it up. It's still dark:30 here and I don't want to turn on a bunch of lights. I love your mums too, very nice! Great shot! Dmail me your address and I will send you some Milkweed seed. It germinates really fast and you will have fairly tall plants before the Monarchs arrive next year.

Sheila, fine shot of the Giant ST!! Linda I would love to have some American Basketflower, your pic is making me drool, lol.

Magnes is intent on buying me Canon Cameras.. I've had the A60, S1, and now I have the S3. It takes a lot of playing to get a good pic, but I get some pretty good ones eventually.

Cool bug Cat! I can't say I've ever seen one of those here... since it is one of your favs I suppose its one of the good guys, is it? Does it just eat fruit or what?

With winter closing in things do slow down as Sheila said, and though I watch birds all year, I really zero in on them in winter. All the little rodents in the fields are hiding in their holes so hawks prey on feeders to get an easy meal. I can always tell when a hawk is outside, because I hear a certain distressful chirping from the sparrows that is unmistakable. I look out the window and sure enough... Here is what I saw yesterday morning through my window...A handsome Sharp Shinned! I do go the the BW forum more in winter too, but many folks here in South TX and FL are getting the lions share of butterflies, and I still want to keep track even though they may not be in my yard, lol~

Hey did y'all know that when you open a pic here, it's like my wallpaper site... You can right click on the pics and set them as wallpaper for your desktop. You can change them all the time, so when you see a great pic like Shela's GST or Linda's Basketflower you can have it on your desktop.

It's getting light here now, so I will be out in a bit, filling feeders and checking on things.. A front is moving in in the next few days, and I am interested in what blows in from the west as it comes. The last of the migratory birds will be passing through too. I will be cutting all the seeds off the Cassia today, boy did it ever produce this year!! I might have a deep enough root system on my 10 foot tree to overwinter this one... Wouldn't that be something? It has taken me a long time to find the perfect spot for growing this giant tropical, but I so enjoyed it over the summer!! It was about 2' tall in May, now 10' and millions of seeds.. Yaay! Anyone want some for next year just dmail me with your address.

debnes

Y'all amaze me with your stunning photos!

I had thought that my little hummer was gone, but it showed up yesterday morning after I changed out the sugar-water. So cute! Still not able to get a photo!

Deb - I am looking at the photo of your Cassia. I think the two I have are a different cultivar of Cassia. Mine are more of a bush form and not as tall as yours. I was wondering if you could take a photo of the seed pods? I have seeds I received in the seed swap and I am looking at the forming pods on mine I don't think the seeds are the same. I'm kinda stumped on what I have now. Yours are definitely Senna Alata. Interesting!

It's warm again today. Maybe rain with a cool front ... I hope! Way to warm this time of year for me! We are running our A/C because it is in the 80's! I don't know if that is some sort of warm record, but I don't remember it being this warm in December last year.

Becky, it definitely is warm here today!

My allergies are driving me crazy and I took a ton of over the counter medicines yesterday and today I feel a lot better. I slept on the couch because my back was bothering me and this morning it occurred to me that I had a chrysalis that was going to pop open soon. So I got my butt into my room and sure enough there was a butterfly waiting for me. Finally, I get to have some fun with them!

While I was waiting for my butterfly to dry, I decided to walk up and down the street to see what was going on. I like to judge other people's lawns and remind myself why mine is so superior! Mostly, I just get angry at the invasive plants I see. As I was walking I'm pretty sure I saw an Orange Barred Sulphur because that thing was huge! And orange! It landed on my neighbor's camellia but flew away before I could get a pic. The Gulf Frits are also out in force.

At the end of the street one of our neighbors has what she calls "wildflowers" and everyone else calls "weeds". She actually uses all native plants, including a lot of the same ones I have. However, if you don't maintain them and keep them neat they end up looking like weeds. I think she's a nice lady though and I discovered that apparently all the zebra longwings are hanging out at her house when they're not visiting me. They were enjoying her large firebushes and porterweed. Her house is very shaded so I think they probably like that, too.

And on the neighbor's firecracker fern was this blue. I'm leaning toward Ceraunus Blue because it only has one eye-spot, but I'm open to other opinions. I was just surprised to see a blue that wasn't on a plumbago!

In other sightings, there was an egg on my passiflora and the Long-Tailed Skippers are still all over the porterweed. Oh, and I saw a dainty sulphur in a neighbor's lawn. That's the report from Tampa!

Sheila, Melanie, Linda, Becky and Debnes (I'm learning your names and it helps to type them):

You girls are spoofing me. You are experts with your cameras and you're just being kind to me! Those are stellar pictures. BTW Debnes. where I live, a photo of a Sharp Skinned on a backyard fence is a rare and extraordinary sight.

Below is Senna (Cassia) that I grew a couple of years ago. I couldn't get the seeds to germinate into healthy seedlings indoors, tho they did come up naturally when I left them in the ground for the winter. The horticulturist at a local nursery where I bought the plant said the seeds are very hard to germinate and sometimes his suppliers are low because of that.

Funny, I know everything about a butterfly's structure (2 pairs of wings, scales or modified hairs on the body, mouthparts, 4 stages of development, etcetera); yet I cannot identify a one of them (except maybe a Monarch or Viceroy). Can you recomment a good book with lots of color pix to ID the beauties? I have 2 very large hard back book on birds that I love. Of course, I would also need a field guide on leps, or even the whole insect class.

Debnes, you are a doll. Go to your Dmail in just a few minutes.

Martha