Let me start this post by saying I can’t figure out what type of Sulphur Butterfly this is.  I’ve sent out some emails for clarification, but if anyone can help me I would appreciate it.

I was watering the lawn today and noticed this very large, yellowish-orange thing fall (at least it appeared to be falling) into the grass.  As I got a closer look, I noticed it was a Butterfly and it was drinking water from the grass.  If you look closely at the picture, you can see the protruding proboscis.

Orange Barred Sulphur, Large Orange Sulphur Or Cloudless Sulphur Drinking Water

After drinking a bit of water, it flew up to the Bamboo where it rested for a good 5-10 minutes.

Orange Barred Sulphur, Large Orange Sulphur Or Cloudless Sulphur On Bamboo

Here’s my problem with this Butterfly.  It looks awful orange to be a Cloudless Sulphur.  It also has that dark rim around the edge of the wings that I don’t believe Cloudless Sulphur Butterflies have.  When I looked in my Butterfly books, there is mention of an Orange Barred Sulphur, but that is supposed to be a rare visitor to the Houston area.

When I did a search on the Internet, I found this page (Butterflies Of The Carolinas and Virginias) and looking at the second photo, it looks quite similar to the Butterfly above.

Can anyone help me positively identify this Butterfly?  Again, I’m located in Houston, Texas, in the Northeast section if that helps.

In other news, I have seen 3 Garter snakes this weekend.  One was about a foot long, and bit my hand the whole time I held it, another was about 2 feet long, and the third was again about 1 foot long.  I didn’t get pictures of those either, but I will, just wait!  I need Leecy’s help for that as I can’t photograph and hold a snake at the same time.

Lots of mating behaviors are starting to occur with the birds.  Males are competing with one another, and females are being chased all over the place.  There are about 10 Purple Martins in our Martin house, and about 20 overall.  The other 10 seem to hang around the house that’s a few doors down from mine where they have 4 Purple Martin houses (I’m jealous!).  I need to do a nest check in that Martin house, but they normally spend a few weeks getting to know one other before building their nest (at least from what I’ve observed in the past).

On a side note, especially for those that are new to Butterfly Gardening.  I’m noticing a lot of those red Paper Wasps.  They are notorious Caterpillar killers.  I’m contemplating covering the Caterpillars I can find to make sure they don’t get eaten.

The Butterflies that were really abundant today were the Gulf Fritillaries.

Gulf Fritillary On Milkweed Dark Background

The Mexican Milkweed appeared to be a popular gathering place for both the Monarchs and the Fritillaries.  Sometimes the Fritillaries and Monarchs would share the Milkweed, other times they would chase each other.

Monarch And Gulf Fritillary On Milkweed

If the chasing became too intense, the Butterflies would separate and find another private place

Gulf Fritillary On Milkweed Wings Spread

One plant that I have heard is a wonderful nectar plant for Butterflies but never actually witnessed them utilizing the plant for nectar is the Mexican Flame Vine.

Today was different.  Both the Monarchs and Fritillaries were drawn to this plant, but it was the Fritillaries who were all over it.

Gulf Fritillary On Mexican Flame Vine

Another Butterfly that was flying around the garden today was the Cloudless Sulphur.  Unlike the other two Butterflies, this particular Butterfly was drawn to the Cigar Plant.  It helps that this Butterfly has a long proboscis so it could easily tap into the nectar of these plants.

Cloudless Sulphur On Cigar Plant

Cloudless Sulphur Drinking Nectar From Cigar Plant

I want to include a couple additional pictures for reference.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know many of our plants were wiped out during the past winter.

Look at the nectar garden now versus how it looked back in February.  Pretty drastic turnaround don’t you think?

Butterfly And Hummingbird Wildflower Garden

Nectar Section Of Butterfly Garden

Cloudless Sulphur Chrysalis Close To Emerging

What I didn’t expect is that the Butterfly would emerge in the late evening.  With most of the other Butterflies we have raised, the Butterfly emerged from the Chrysalis in the mid-morning hours.  Since it was cold outside we brought the newly emerged Butterfly inside for the night.

The next day we took the Butterfly outside so it could warm up in the morning sun.

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Just Hatched

Here’s a Macro closeup of the Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly.

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Just Hatched Up Close

This final shot was after the Butterfly flew a short distance away and continued to warm up in the sun.

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Resting Before Flight

Male Monarch Patrolling Territory

This Gulf Fritillary was also chasing females.  In the picture below, he was resting on the plant that was next to the Passion Vine.  Although I didn’t get any pictures of them today, we also have lots of Fritillary caterpillars right now.

Gulf Fritillary Warming Wings

I have always struggled to get a decent picture of these Butterflies as their light color combined with their erratic flight makes it challenging. Another thing I noticed, at least today, is that the colors of these Butterflies tends to vary from a bright orangish (is that a word) yellow to an almost white (or very light yellow) color.

These two pictures are probably the best I have taken so far.

Cloudless Sulphur On Cassia

This Butterfly was laying eggs.  Notice the little yellow eggs in the picture (click on the picture for a closer view).

Cloudless Sulphur Laying Eggs

I really feel dumb.  Every post I did on the Sulphur Butterflies we have in our backyard I have called them “Clouded” Sulphurs, not “Cloudless” Sulphurs.

In the future, if anyone notices I post something that isn’t true or I’m being a knucklehead, please correct me.  I can take it, I promise.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

A few days ago I wrote a post about this yellow Caterpillar that I had seen on our Cassia tree.  I speculated that the Caterpillar was a Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Caterpillar.  I’m still sticking with that speculation.

Sulphur Caterpillar Macro 3

What was somewhat surprising to me is that there are not many pictures on the web of a Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar (go ahead and try and search Google).  I did see some images labeled “Sulphur” Caterpillar, but really couldn’t find any that stated with certainty that the image displayed was indeed a Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar so perhaps this is somewhat of a rarity.

Anyway, after two days, the Caterpillar finally turned into a Chrysalis.

This is the first Caterpillar and Chrysalis we’ve even seen in our backyard of the Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly.

Clouded Sulphur Chrysalis

Normally we just have Cloudless Sulphur Butterflies laying eggs on this plant, and rarely do the Caterpillars make it to the Chrysalis stage because this plant is also favored by the Wasps.

However, that being said, I’m not sure this is a Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar.  I know the Caterpillars I have seen from the Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly tend to be green, not bright yellow like this one is.  I’m also making an assumption it is a Butterfly Caterpillar because of the familiar “J” shape that it is in.

Because this Caterpillar is so rare (at least for us), we actually placed it in one of our Butterfly enclosures so that the wasps and other predators don’t attack it.

So, for those that might know, or care to do the research, is this a Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar?

Sulphur Caterpillar

The following pictures show the same Caterpillar, but these were taken with the Macro lens.  If you click on the pictures, you can really see some interesting detail.

Sulphur Caterpillar Macro

Sulphur Caterpillar Macro 2

Sulphur Caterpillar Macro 3

Since the sun was out, and things began to warm up, it also brought out several Butterflies.  One was an Eastern Black Swallowtail that just hatched this morning.  Also had 1 male Monarch, at least 4 Cloudless Sulphurs (none of the pics came out good enough to post), and 2 Gulf Fritillaries.

Eastern Black Swallowtail 7D

Male Monarch Resting After Feeding

Gulf Fritillary 7D

I didn’t see any Eastern Black Swallowtails flying, but we do have lots of Chrysalis and Caterpillars.

Speaking of Butterflies, Leecy tells me we have about 115 Polydamas Chrysalises.

Gulf Fritillary Laying Eggs

I guess one of my unanswered questions would be if this is a Cloudless Sulphur, what’s the larger similarly colored Butterfly that’s always around our Senna tree?

Cloudless Sulphur In Mulch

Cloudless Sulphur In Cage