A new season begins, Curious to hear of your pollinator or butterfly sightings or doings in another atypical season...What plants are popular? Have you added? Seen any Monarchs yet? Spotted any cats?
We came from here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1377142/
hey, Coleup, so glad to see you've put up another pollinator thread! I've been loving the bees, skippers and other butterflies, and other beneficial insects in my yard this year-- so far, they especially love the new mountain mints I got last year!
Only two cats (BST) so far this season--they emerged and flew away a week or two ago. Hoping to see some more Monarch cats this year, but nothing so far.
Had one exciting visitor recently--a hummingbird clearwing sphynx moth!! So beautiful! (Flapdoodle and Greenthumb have been helping me with some insect IDs on the Insect & Spider ID forum.) Held me captive in the yard for the longest time, admiring. Hope to see more of them!
WowWowWow WOW Wow
And your photos are great, too! Love the ones on the white Phlox, better than the first 5 pages of Google images which were pretty mesmerizing.
Good reminder not to kill finger sized green or brown horned creepy crawlies that can devour a lot of plant in a little time (even tomato horn worms turn into beautiful Sphinx moths ) Lucky for us the Clearwing flies by day.
http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2012/06/21/loathed-by-gardeners-tomato-hornworms-morph-into-magnificent-sphinx-moths/
Pic below, how the Sphinx Moth got its name.
thanks for the kind words and the info, Coleup--did not know that about the tomato hornworms, and I had forgotten about the connection with Silence of the Lambs--and what a cool looking caterpillar!
If there is such a thing as a pale color Monarch--there was one flying around today
as I watered at the HD. NO orange--just kind of beige, but other wise--
looked just like a Monarch.
The bees sure are getting active--they were all over the flowers.
Many came close to check me out--I tried to ignore them...
Last Tuesday--there was a small dark-colored little lizard on the table.
Maybe 4" long. I need to start carrying my camera with me in my pocket...
I miss out on so many pretties.
In my garden--nothing of interest yet--no "cats" (meow...)--no butterflies to speak of--
just some of the little ones.
Parsley is bolting.....Dill is turning yellow....but the Tomatoes and cukes
are marching on! They love this weather....
Here is a Hummingbird Moth I took a picrure of last week.
Are they the same as the "sphynx" Moth? They move SOOO fast!
G.
Great photo, Gita!
The Hummingbird Clearwing moth is a type of Sphinx moth.
One of my Purple Milkweed plants was infested with Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillars. There was about 30 - 40 on a single leaf and lower leaves appeared to have been eaten in succession. I simply snipped the leaf off into a container of soapy water and they met their demise wholesale. Very attractive caterpillars, but they can quickly strip the foliage off a milkweed plant, and they have stinging spines as well. Photo of a more mature cat.
oh wow, Greenthumb, that is quite a sight! It always amazes me how something that looks so fluffy and pettable can be such a stinger. :-( That is a good idea to dunk the leaf in soapy water.
Coleup, I was just thinking that we needed a pollinator thread; thanks for starting one!
CatMint, those are awesome photos of the clearwing sphynx moth. I wonder what benefit it gets from having clear wings?
Gita, I hadn't noticed the clear wings on your moth when I first saw your photo; neat!
I saw the first Swallowtails in my garden last week, but no sign of eggs much less caterpillars yet.
1-2) I had fun watching this bee dive into Scutellaria incana as I was dead-heading the plants today. They're getting a second flush of blooms, so the bees should be in 7th heaven for the rest of the summer.
3) Bee on Asclepias incarnata
4) I have a host of host plants for Black Swallowtails, so I hope to see some cats soon!
This message was edited Jul 12, 2015 9:04 PM
Greenthumb, I've seen milkweed plant after milkweed plant (Common) stripped bare by 'hordes' of Tussuck moth cats, even the seed pods when I went searching for fresh leaves for the Monarch cats I raised two years ago.
Euchaetes egle, the milkweed tussock caterpillar or milkweed tiger moth is pretty interesting in its defences from predation.
From the Living With Insects blog
https://livingwithinsects.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/milkweed-tiger-moth/
"The caterpillar most associated with milkweed is the Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar. However, other caterpillars can also be found on milkweed. This includes the gregarious, Euchaetes egle, the Milkweed Tiger Moth. Like the Monarch caterpillar, the Milkweed Tiger Moth caterpillar sequesters toxins from the milkweed plant to defend against predators. Day flying butterflies can defend against bird attacks by advertising their toxicity with bright orange and black warning colors. The Milkweed Tiger Moth has bright orange warning colors on its body to warn day flying predators. However, the moth flies at night and can be attacked by bats who cannot see the warning colors. To advertise their unpalatability to bats, the moths use their sound organ to make ultrasonic clicks that are audible to bats. The “trash talking” by the moths warns bats to keep a safe distance. Nickolay I. Hristov and William E. Conner discuss this behavior in a NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN paper(Volume 92, Number 4, 164-169, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-005-0611-7)."
Muddy, love the bee and butterfly photos! Great shot of the swallowtail.
Coleup, that is very interesting about the clicking sounds they make to warn bats away! :-)
I've seen only one Tiger Swallowtail to date, well, maybe a few other small butterflies here and there.
Milkweed Tussock Moths can eat Hemp Dogbane too- which is how I got a clue to ID that plant when it volunteered for me.
Sally, when you encounter Dogbane, be on the lookout for the very showy Dogbane Leaf Beetle. Photo #1
For all of you who grow Milkweeds, there are a couple of other plant specific pest to be aware of.
#2 - Milkweed Leaf Beetle, adult
#3 - Milkweed Leaf Beetle, larva
#4 - group of Milkweed Leaf Beetle larva. These guys completely stripped my Swamp Milkweed last year.
#5 - Milkweed Aphids
thanks, Greenthumb--good to see pics of these pests!
On my own milkweed I have seen these:
Those are Milkweed Bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus, they have never been a problem for me.
See http://insected.arizona.edu/milkinfo.htm and http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/milkweed/milkweed-bug-control.htm
Thanks, Greenthumb--that's interesting to know about them. I'll probably want to keep an eye on them, since I *would* like my milkweed plants to self-seed for next year.
cat--
My Tropical Milkweed did not self-seed at all.
A great disappointment. I even scattered somw swwds in ealy summer--
NADA!
G.
Sorry to hear that, Gita.
My tropical milkweed did reseed, amazingly enough. My other Asclepias have all come back strong this year, plus I got a small A. syriaca that I'm hoping will self-seed in my 'meadow' backyard.
greenthtumb, those Milkweed beetles are amazing, I had them on swamp milkweed also, and it died./ failed to return in spring.
Sally, thanks for the heads up about that. I will definitely be more vigilant. Right now they are only on one of my milkweed plants and a fairly light infestation.
No such thing as a "light infestation" of these critters, do not be casual about their presence.
No such thing as a "light infestation" of these critters, do not be casual about their presence.
it's fascinating that the milkweed beetles found my one swamp milkweed, I had never grown before, and ate it up, and have never appeared on years of a big patch of common milkweed.
They are on my swamp milkweed as well right now--not on any other of my kinds of milkweed. They seem to prefer it. Must be particularly tasty...
Different milkweed pests seem to prefer different species. I grow 8 or so species, so there is a selection for all these pests. Milkweed Tussock Moth cats go after my Purple Milkweed, Milkweed Leaf Beetles after my Swamp Milkweed, and Milkweed Aphids prefer my Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosum. Common Milkweed is one species I don't grow.
"Common Milkweed is one species I don't grow."
I could fix that anytime...it would be happy down by the road, I think, in the roadside drainage.
Can anyone name these butterflies for me? I know the one is a swallowtail, just not sure which type. The swallowtail was taken tonight and the others are from a few days ago. It's fun to watch all the butterflies hang out on the flowers. My annual zinnias are magnets for them.
I'm pretty sure that's an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, but I don't know what the others are. I like that little orange and yellow one.
1 & 2 - male Eastern TigerSwallowtail
3 - Spring Azure
4 - Meadow Fritillary
Jeff et al
Here is a reference guide to common flora and fauna of the Mid Atlantic The page linked shows butterflies, moths and caterpillars The second link is to butterflies of Maryland
http://midatlantichikes.com/floraandfauna/butterflies.htm
http://www.marylandbutterflies.com/
Your swallowtail is a Tiger Swallowtail. I think 'yellow = tiger' to get this swallowtail's name. Not so good with the dark swallowtails unless I can see them up close and still repeatedly for ID!
Speaking of zinnias was it you Jeff who mentioned 'Profusion' Zinnias last year? And that the 'Profusions' have little to no nectar for our pollinators....
This message was edited Jul 14, 2015 10:10 PM
Thanks for the links, coleup; I particularly like that second one.
"Common Milkweed is one species I don't grow."
I could fix that anytime...it would be happy down by the road, I think, in the roadside drainage.
Thanks for the IDs GT.
Coleup, I have been planting zinnias for a few years now, it may have been me that mentioned something about them but I'm not sure how much nectar they do or do not have. All I know is that butterflies enjoy them and they are probably the thing butterflies most consistently flutter to in our yard.
That's great that the pollinators love your Zinnias, Seq.
I have read that they attract beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps, hoverflies, syrphid flies.
Wish I had remembered 'why' I made a mental note of Zinnia profusion series last year cause I wouldn't have bought two flats of them! Evidently this hybrid Zinnia has the nectar bred right out of it so offers little to no food valoe to pollinators and beneficials. My double row of them is a pollinator food desert and remains unvisited. Sigh should have gotten the State Fair instead or planted seeds.
I just looked up the Profusion series and they do look like ones I get. I get a mix of three different kinds from the nursery I go to. One of those kinds was Profusion. It's hard to tell between the different varieties though. Where did you hear about the Profusion being nectar poor?
It was on one of our threads last summer/fall. Found it once, maybe can find again.
I wanted something that was season long bloomer for pollinators as I am heavy on the Fall blooming nectar rich plants (goldenrods, asters, Joe Pye, agastache... as food source for migrating Monarchs.(mid Sept - Oct) So I got Zinnia, Malva and Verbena bonariences. First Monarchs spotted in this area around mid June
Judy--where do you come up with these amazing links????
LOVE all the pictures! I bookmarked both.
None of my tropical MIlkweeds came up from seed. bummer!
I DO have this one. it has been growing for 3 years now--but is blooming only now.
Refresh my mind, please....My one Milkweed--did you all ID it as Swamp Milkweed?
Now I have to go out and look out for leaf beetles....Yes?
Thanks. Gita
Yes, Gita I believe we did agree that it's Swamp Milkweed.
CatMint, greenthumb might have other reasons, but one reason why I won't grow Asclepias syriaca is because it spreads aggressively by underground rhizomes that aren't all that easy to dig up.
This link lists some pros and cons for it: https://monarchbutterflygarden.net/milkweed-plant-seed-resources/asclepias-syriaca/
Reasons I don't grow Asclepias syriaca:
1 - To quote Muddy "it spreads aggressively by underground rhizomes that aren't all that easy to dig up."
2 - It prefers full sun, which I can't provide.
3 - There is lots of this plant in nearby fields.
4 - I prefer to promote the populations of the more uncommon native species.
