Rearing container update: Right now, our rearing container contains 4 BST chrisalids, 6 Monarch chrisalids, and 3 Monarch cats. Sure would like to have more, but we'll take what we can get!!
And so little time to do it in! I've been gone for a few days, but made time to take a few laps around the habitat (we're just going to call it the Hab from here on out; thanks, Matt Damon!) this evening. A Buckeye, a couple Tigers, and a couple "miscellaneous darks" were the only fliers this evening, and one lonely Monarch male. Oh, and one Snowberry Clearwing. I really need to get busy on making myself a quick-reference section to help determine what I'm looking at when it comes to the "miscellaneous darks"! I'm really wondering if I've been seeing Black Swallowtails and misidentifying them as Spicebush Swallowtails or dark morph Tigers. I'll try to work on that this week! I'd also like to get to work on another section of this site to document our Monarch-raising efforts. It's such a fascinating hobby, and so informative; not to mention fun and relatively easy! So basically, this post is just to try and motivate myself :). I'm going to make it my goal to get those things done this week!
Rearing container update: Right now, our rearing container contains 4 BST chrisalids, 6 Monarch chrisalids, and 3 Monarch cats. Sure would like to have more, but we'll take what we can get!!
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In our "butterfly field", we mainly have the usual Common Milkweed, with a couple stems of Tall Green Milkweed mixed in. In our other field, there's quite a bit of the Tall Green, but most of it gets mowed a couple times a year (except for what's on the steep pond dam). I've never paid a whole lot of attention to the TG, because I've only found one cat on it before, and a source in one of the butterfly groups told me the females won't lay on it because the cats won't eat it, and that the lone cat was probably a fluke; having crawled there looking to pupate or something. So while I give some of it a cursory glance once in awhile, I'm mostly just peering at it for it's unusual flowers than looking for cats. But as I've said already, we've not been seeing any females and we haven't found any cats on the Common after that first small bunch. So imagine my surprise when I was out checking the Common and noticed a giant cat on a TG from halfway across the field; and then another, and another, and another! Nearly a dozen found in just a few minutes; and of various instars, so the girls have been sneaking in multiple times!! So we have the four BST's (two have now pupated) and a dozen Monarchs in the tubs. I have to leave for a few days, but I plan a thorough TG-checking expedition when I return!!
We had all kinds of firsts happen this weekend; firsts for the season, and even a first-ever!! To start off the weekend, we had our first Monarchs eclose; three of them! All males, unfortunately, but I was able to catch one for a quick time lapse and another for a FB livestream to educate friends. I was really hoping for some ladies, since all the wildlings in our field are males and we haven't found a single egg since this first batch, but I'm okay with three healthy new males. On Sunday, the husband and I were on a scouting mission just to see if we could see a female ANYWHERE (no such luck), when I remarked about the oddity of not seeing any Viceroys yet this year, either...and suddenly, there they are! Three or four down at Snakey Point, including this friendly fellow: And another total first for me...when we returned home and went to check out our own butterfly field, we happened across four large Black Swallowtail caterpillars!!! In the last couple of years, I've only seen one or two adults and NEVER a cat, but here were front of the little buggars on one small patch of Queene Anne's Lace! So they've been moved to one of our rearing containers, and we'll see what happens! I'd like to add a quick note here, before I sign off for the day. When checking new posts in one of the FB butterfly groups this evening, an individual had posted about "finding" a certified Monarch Waystation when vacationing in Ohio, and about taking seed pods from said station. Please, PLEASE do not do this! If you need seeds, there are any number of people online who will send you seeds. There are plenty of other places to get pods, if you so desire. Trespassing on private land is illegal and unethical. This was a certified Waystation, which means someone has spent time on this area and cares for it. To make matters even worse, the poster picked an unripened pod that wouldn't have had viable seeds anyway, making the effort a waste in every way. This angers me more than it probably should, but I wanted to share. Thank you for reading!
I just keep snapping away in my little butterfly field, but getting the motivation to post is what's going to get me. I did see some newbies this week, but until I figure out what I did with my identification book, those will have to wait!! Dos Lonely Boys, the two Monarch males that have been cruising our field for a couple of weeks now, were joined by a third bachelor this afternoon. I suppose I should feel lucky that we have these three, because there have been many complaints in the Facebook butterfly groups about the lateness of the Monarch's arrival this summer. That brings me back to the subject of the females...I know we've had one at some point, because four of the six caterpillars we found are now safely ensconced in their chrysalides. But was there just the one lady? Have there been more ladies that I didn't see, but something is getting the cats and eggs before I do? I suspect the latter, but until I refresh my research on good and bad bugs, I'm stuck with what we've got. in the meantime, the last of the common milkweed flowers are about done with; but the weird, plain milkweed (I forget the name) is going strong. The butterfly weed and clover are going great guns, and the ironweed and Joe Pye weed are just starting to bloom. I need to get out there and knock down some of the dogbane and cockleburs before they get out of hand. If we decide to leave that front field as a habitat, I'd like to throw a few coneflower and other seeds out there for next year. I'm going to cut back a few of the larger milkweeds this weekend so we get a little regrowth in case of late hatchings; scouring back roads for sketchy late-season milkweed to feed hungry cats is no fun!!
Hello!! So, you've stumbled upon my butterfly page! I apologize for my long absence; with the acquisition of the Weebly app and a wifi card in my camera (so I can update from the field), I hope to be picking back up where I left off and cataloging the species that visit our area. In the next few days, I hope to add a calendar to this site so that I can track when we first sight various species each year. Feel free to drop me a comment if you have any suggestions!!
This summer, after seeing a stand of milkweed alongside a back road that had just been mowed, I decided to stop and look for caterpillars on the dying weeds. I found a few and brought them home, thus beginning my first foray into raising Monarchs. So far, we've raised and released four females and three males, with several more caterpillars and chrysalids yet to go. It turns out that I am absolutely terrible at spotting eggs, though; nearly every time I bring in new milkweed for the enclosure, even after I rinse it to remove OE spores, I end up with a brand new little caterpillar in a few days. It certainly has been a learning experience! After releasing the latest hatch, I visited the "butterfly patch" in my pasture; there's an area of about an acre that we don't mow, and it's chock-full of Joe Pye Weed, Ironweed, Mountain Mint, and what seems like virtually every flower known to man. The butterflies seem to love it; I counted 6 Monarchs, 3 Tigers, a Buckeye, and various other Swallowtails that I have yet to compare photograph-to-book to identify properly. I will have to post those soon! Here's hoping for good weather this weekend, so I can get out there in the early afternoon when they'll be most active! Here are just a few of the photos I've gotten during the process. I believe that next year, I'll be ordering a tagging kit so I can keep track of how many stay around. Took a drive through the refuge this evening and finally found a few flutterers. I'm not entirely sure on that second Comma, considering the ID is being made from the underside of the wing (the sunlight made the wings semi-translucent).
I noticed this guy flitting about this afternoon and got a smile watching him (Black Swallowtail, male). He was perched in the top of one of my autumn olive bushes (yes, I know, but they smell soooo good in spring!); and he was so territorial, he was chasing everything that moved. He chased off a Spicebush Swallowtail and a Red Admiral; he was even chasing birds! There's a family of mockingbirds in a nearby pine branch and the parents are busily bringing in food for the babies, and every few minutes when one would fly over, he'd leave his perch and follow it for a good 15 feet before returning to his post. Such a brave little guy!
Look who visited us today...a lone male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail! The lack of the Tigers this year really has me curious. They've been so rare this year, compared to last. What gives? During a short walk at Maxey Marsh Trail, I was visited by the biggest, bluest Red-Spotted Purple I think I've ever seen. It was glorious!
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