I’ve been talking and focusing on butterflies. But, we just never know what we will find when looking at our Butterfly plants. Take for example, the picture below. I noticed a Gulf Coast Fritillary flying around by the Passion Vine. So I went over to check to see if we might have any eggs. We did! Just not Fritillary eggs, Cardinal eggs. It’s both surprising and not surprising. It’s not surprising because we have lots of male and female Cardinals that feed from our bird feeders. They’re kinda trained too (or we are). Every day around 5 pm, the Cardinals start their chirping that they are ready to eat and if the bird feeder is not filled, to please fill it. It’s true! We also had a cardinal build a nest with 4 eggs a couple of years ago but didn’t see any last year. Now the surprise. The momma cardinal laid 3 eggs within our Passion Vine plant which is the host plant for our Fritillaries. She chrips at us if we get too close and always keeps an eye on what we’re doing. Here’s what I don’t know. I’m pretty sure there are some Fritillary eggs on the plant now. Once those eggs hatch, they will be caterpillars. What I don’t know is, do Cardinals just eat seeds or do they eat insects (like butterfly caterpillars)? If they do eat insects, then they may have a feast crawling into their mouths. But on the bright side, it’s going to be nice watching the eggs develop into babies.
Cardinal Eggs
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