Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Monthly Archives: May 2009 Remember Alvin, the first of Timothia’s offspring who hatched yesterday (May 22)? Today he had a brother who was born, and whereas Alvin couldn’t seem to care less about another Butterfly, his brother, Brutus, is an all out Pimp! First came this Painted Lady Butterfly trying to impress Brutus Shortly after the Painted Lady Butterfly…  Remember Alvin, the first of Timothia’s offspring who hatched yesterday (May 22)? I had mentioned that I brought him inside last night because he just sat on the Butterfly Bush and didn’t even flinch when another female Monarch came fluttering by. So today I took Alvin back outside to release him. He calmly stretched his…  In the previous post I mentioned how 8 of the 10 Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars we have are in the Chrysalis stage. The strange thing that I never mentioned previously, as that we really haven’t seen too many Eastern Blacks yet this year, and we certainly didn’t notice anyone laying eggs. Until today that is! … Our Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars are growing like weeds. Of the 10 or so that we currently have, 8 are now in the Chrysalis stage. This photo was taken yesterday (May 23) before they turned into Chrysalis Or maybe Alvin is wondering if a mad scientist is going to dissect him. Never! I just thought the responsible thing to do after any of Timothia’s offspring hatch would be to test them for the OE parasite. Here’s what I did. Obviously I put on some gloves in case he was infected. I took…  This might be one of the most beautiful Monarch butterflies I have seen, but I am also kind of biased. This is the first offspring from none other than Timothia! You can tell by the two black spots on the lower part of his wings that he is a male. He hatched some time today… Butterfly Koi that is. This is an image from my pond. It’s about 3000 gallons, with 3 Butterfly Koi (notice the long flowing tails on the yellow fish), and who knows how many fancy Goldfish. We didn’t start out with that many Goldfish, but they keep on breeding. As if there aren’t enough critters in the backyard, these two guys came over to have dinner tonight. It’s kinda funny, every day around 5:00pm, like clockwork, the doves (and an occasional woodpecker) start sitting on the fence looking for dinner from the bird feeders. Sorry, I kinda messed up on the crop of this… I have a complaint, actually a couple of them. Unfortunately my complaints are directed just to me. Here’s the deal. I paid alot of money a couple of years ago to have an automated sprinkler system installed. When I paid to have this done I remember thinking how much easier it would be to water… Back in February I was trying to attract some Butterflies that I haven’t had visit before. I read about some Butterflies being attracted to rotten fruit and at the same time our Lemon tree was just starting to bloom some flowers and I thought I’d give the Honeybees some extra sugar. Since I had some…  This is also a picture from last year, but since we currently have 11 Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars that are just a day or so away from forming Chrysalis, I thought I would post this picture. This is a picture of an Eastern Black Swallowtail. They have only laid their eggs on our Fennel. What’s…  Look close. Is this a Monarch caterpillar? I’ll give you some clues. It’s crawling up a Milkweed stalk. The answer is at the bottom of the picture Notice the extra set of antennae? A Monarch only has two, a Queen has three. We had two of these appear last year. Never saw the Chrysalis or… So, I’m surfing around the net reading different topics of interest and I come across the term Butterfly Breeder and Commercial Butterfly Breeder. What the heck are those two things? I’m not criticizing, I just want to know what they do. In most of the member links it talks about how you can buy a… It’s not easy being a Butterfly gardener. You’ve got to have a variety of host plants, a variety of nectar plants, a Butterfly net or two (for catching and killing wasps), and of course the proper clothing. Deer hunters use camouflage so they can’t be easily spotted, and it’s equally important that Butterfly hunters have… I need some help. See the little guy below? We found him on the Parsley today, which is right next to our Fennel. I’m not sure if this is an Eastern Black Swallowtail or some other kind of caterpillar. I know there are a few butterflies that utilize Parsley as their host plant, but it… |
|