Daily Butterfly Pictures #87

How cool is that! That's amazing! Thanks for the info. Sheila.

How cool!!

Just walked Gus and just about fainted...I saw a Monarch!!

Yippie! Congrats Nan on seeing the Monarch. I'm allowing my MW seeds to disperse at at will, in hope there will be more plants for them when Monarch arrive here. Right now I've a gazillions of them making flowers and seedpods.

Congrats Sheila, I think we tagged 800 over the last few years before we had one recovered

I have certinaly enjoyed this forum.I have many butterflys, of witch I know none, but here, I have learned a lot of new names. Thank you. Mike

Some of the monarch cats we're raising

They seem to like the corner of the BF coop

BCH.....Too cool! So glad someone is being blessed with Monarchs. I think the corner must be toward the light source or just the corner the first one chose...LOL!

Had one so intent on following the first it made on top of the other.

The monarchs are hard to find DW and I spent about an hour earlier, and looked over about 100 MW plants and found three eggs, and two cats. We are lucky that the farmer down the road leaves his creek wild, so it is loaded w/ milkweed. We also have about thirty or so mature MW on our property, but only found one cat on those

Very nice everyone, I have to say, that I'm not seeing much butterflies here either.

These cats of the Polyphemus Moth, came from eggs that were attached to my inside window sill. The moth, that I brought in one night to photograph, laid these eggs. I didn't realized she had laid eggs there, until the day after, I released her. Read up on it, and put them in a plastic container. They hatched 3 days ago. I'm feeding them Birch leaves.

I disturbed this moth when I was dead heading my Peonies. Didn't find it's name yet.

My GD holding a Checkerspot, the driveway we stopped in, was full of them. We saw a White Admiral, some Pearl Crescents, and Skippers.

With it's wing opened.

White Admiral

I don't think I've ever seen a White Admiral; very cool burn. Here's a Red Admiral:

Oh Bernadette, how neat that you've discovered the polyphemus moth's cats. You're seeing more butf'lies there than I've seen in months. I did see a brownish moth when I tended the garden yesterday.

It's 1st for me to learn that there are Red then White Admirals. How cool!

Those Polyphemus cats will eat you out of leaves! They are definately piggies and won't pupate for a long time. LOL!

What other hostplants do those poly- use please.

Oh....I forgot to mention I was looking on the recovery of the tagged Monarchs and saw something very interesting and in direct relationship to what we have been noticing the last few years. If you go there and put in just the year you will see the numbers dropped from 700+ a few years ago to 200-300 the last two years. That is not many out of those that are tagged each year. But the numbers really fell off with the storms and cutting of their forest habitat.

Oak for one....let me go see the entire list.

This site is good and list quite a few. http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/polyphemus_moth.htm

This message was edited Jul 9, 2011 6:28 PM

Sheila, that was a very interesting site... lol at your comment. I have quite a few of the trees mentioned as host plants in my yard, maybe I can switch their diet from day to day .;) It's the cleaning up, I will find a challenge after a while. With their sizes and the amount of cats I have they'll keep me busy. They already are poop machines at this size. lol

Nice monarch cats there! I was watering and found two older monarch cats on the whorled milkweed, of all things! I but some small fencing over them until I could get them in, but they were gone when I went to get them. Think they probably took off to pupate. I was shocked really, since I had only seen a monarch once.

Thank you Sheila for the interesting website. Like Burn, I've many of those trees in the garden. Sorry Marna, about the missing Monarch cats.

After finding the two big moths I've started checking our porch in the morning. A Luna was there this morning and a few smaller but very pretty guys. Does anyone know who this is? I am still very much a newbie to it.

I thought this guy was pretty too. My coneflowers are just starting to open so expect a lot of butterflies soon. Also have 100s of milkweed so will lot for the cats:-)

While this entry seems to be from a scary movie!

okcrow..... Here is a website with pictures you can look through. There are so many moths that I don't even try to id most of them. http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/gallery?stage=adult&species_view=dorsal&species_type=1&family=All&field_sciname_value=&field_comname_value= I have narrowed it down for adults, dorsal (top) view. Hope this will help.

You might put them on the insect id forum if you want the experts to id them.


This message was edited Jul 10, 2011 12:35 PM

Have I got myself a BST here?

More for their favorite corner

TST on coneflowers--1st one I've seen for weeks

I am having serious butterfly withdrawal here.....so dismal! Can't believe I have no BST cats or nothing! I did see a Silver Spotted Skipper this morning on my walk with Gus.

Very sweet set up BCH!

Three new monarch females to release today

Lily, it isn't a pipevine, so pretty sure it is a BST, but coloring seems odd. So sorry you are like me nanny without many around.
BCH nice to see the Monarchs in the "J" and especially emerged ones. Nice TST too.

I was blessed to see three bfs today! I spotted a Silver spotted Skipper, but no pic.
Then this TST teased me as they always do. One of these days I will have a hop tree big enough for them to find it and lay eggs!

And this male Queen BF, seems the spots were faded out.

First time this year. Sachem Skipper's are usually one of most prevalent butterflies in my garden...scarce this year, so far.

Bob

Another regular in my garden...Peck's Skipper showed for the first time on July 10, also.

Bob

Thank you Sheila for the i.d. on the BST, it was really humid out when I was taking the photos, so perhaps it effected the pics. BCH, so nice to see you've such success with those many Monarch cats. Hi Bob, those skippers are cute. I too saw a first Silverspotted Skipper yesterday Sheila, no pix though.