Giant Swallowtail On Pink Butterfly Bush

This Butterfly was so enamored with this particular Butterfly Bush I could barely get a few pictures.  It would visit one section of the plant, then fly to another, then fly to another.  I assume this was a female as I did see her flying near one of our Fruit trees, presumably to lay eggs.

Giant Swallowtail Getting Nectar From Pink Butterfly Bush

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.

Our Wildflower Garden is really blooming now and I’ve noticed at least two types of Butterflies have been visiting.  The Eastern Black Swallowtail and as of yesterday, a Giant Swallowtail Butterfly.

Talk about a challenge to photograph.  This Butterfly kept flying from one Wildflower to the next and never rested for more than a few seconds.  Although you can’t tell in this picture, it’s proboscis was covered in pollen.

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly Getting Nectar From Red Wildflowers

Leecy who’s always looking for ways to sell things, has been selling the Lemons for 50 cents and she tells me she’s made about $50.00 so far.  Compared to the Lemons in our local grocery stores, our Lemons are about twice as big.

Today Leecy did our next to last picking.  We only have a dozen left after these that she picked today.

Leecy's Lemons December 2010

I got a few pictures, but I missed several and several others weren’t that good as I got over-excited.

The plants that seemed to be attracting the most Butterflies were the Lantana and Butterfly Bush.

The most prevalent Butterfly I saw today was the Eastern Black Swallowtail.  Interestingly, none of them were laying any eggs, they were just going after the nectar and chasing each other.

Eastern Black Swallowtail On Butterfly Bush

On top of all that, we’re having a crisis.  We are running out of Dutchman’s Pipevine (Aristolochia Fimbriata) and neither Joshua’s Native Plants nor Buchanan’s Native Plants has any in stock.  We have at least 15 huge Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars and although I’ve been thinking they will soon stop eating and form Chrysalises, I’m apparently mistaken.  I could have sworn they were going to stop eating yesterday, and yet today there they were, still munching away.  They were even eating the Dutchman’s Pipevine stems since there were so few leaves.

I’m going to start calling first thing in the morning and see if any other nurseries have this plant in stock.  For those of you in the Houston area reading this, if you know of a source, please share!

In this first photo, the Butterfly was flying in front of a Sago Palm.  The Palm makes an interesting background to me.

Giant Swallowtail In Flight

In this second picture, the Giant Swallowtail was flying by our Fig Tree.

Giant Swallowtail In Flight Near Fig Tree

Before taking the picture I touched the Caterpillar and it shot out its Osmeterium (two antennae).

Shortly after I took this picture I went back so look at it, and it was gone.  Hopefully a wasp didn’t get it.

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar Displaying Osmeterium

In this first image, the Swallowtail is getting nectar from one of our Penta plants.

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Penta

These next two images are “almost” the same, but one of them contains a notorious Butterfly Caterpillar killer.  These pictures are a little unusual as well (at least to me) because the Giant Swallowtail is getting nectar from the Milkweed plant, which is the Host Plant for Monarch Butterflies.

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Milkweed With Wasp

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Milkweed

We haven’t seen any Monarch Butterflies, but we do have 9 Caterpillars from the one Monarch from Mexico.  To give the Caterpillars the best chance of success, I have quarantined them in our Butterfly Enclosure.  I did this to protect the Caterpillars from predatory wasps and flies.  So far, all of the Monarch Caterpillars appear to be doing great.

Mexican Monarch Caterpillar Feeding On Milkweed Blooms

Mexican Monarch Caterpillar Feeding On Milkweed Flower

Mexican Monarch Caterpillar Feeding

Another Butterfly that has been making daily visits is a Giant Swallowtail.  From what I can tell, she really likes laying eggs on our Moro Blood Orange Tree.  On that tree alone I’ve counted over 9 different eggs, and I’m sure there’s some I haven’t seen.

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly Egg

I was fortunate enough to also catch a glimpse of 2 Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars. The Caterpillar in the picture below is about two days old.  You can even see the egg casing (white) in the background.

Two Day Old Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar

We’ve also seen the Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly.  I’ve been able to find 1 Caterpillar so far.  I’ll post some pictures of that later.

We saw a Monarch (it never did land on our Milkweed), Gulf Fritillary, and a Giant Swallowtail.  I also noticed that one of Monarch eggs had hatched, and another should hatch by tomorrow.

That’s what we “saw”, but we also managed to get some pictures of something we have never seen before, at least not in our backyard.

However, before all that, let me share a picture of something we have seen many times, but it’s always nice when it happens.

Giant Swallowtail Laying Eggs On Moro Orange Tree

The above picture is a Giant Swallowtail laying eggs on a Moro Orange Tree, also knows as a Blood Orange Tree.  She was also laying eggs on our Republic of Texas Orange Tree and Ruby Red Grapefruit Tree.

The part I’ve never seen before is a Giant Swallowtail “Puddling.”  Puddling is where Butterflies sip moisture and minerals from mud or sandy soils. What was interesting is that the Giant Swallowtail was “Puddling” in my backyard.  I did spread some topsoil earlier in the year, so I suppose there were salts and minerals in the topsoil.

Giant Swallowtail Puddling

Giant Swallowtail Puddling Closeup

There are a total of 5 videos, each one is less than 2 minutes long.  Watching these should give you a decent idea of how to start (or continue) a successful Butterfly Garden.

In this first video, I talk about how to buy Milkweed, what prices you should expect to pay (at least in Houston), how to tell if you have healthy Milkweed, and how to plant your Milkweed plants.

In this second video clip, I talk about the importance of having Nectar plants for your Butterfly Garden.  I also show a brief clip of my Butterfly Enclosures.

By the way, some good nectar plants I recommend are Penta, Salvia, Purple Coneflower, Lantana, Butterfly Bush, and the Cigar Bush.

In this third video clip, I talk about some other Host Plants for your Butterfly Garden including, Pipevine, Fennel, and Citrus Trees.

In the fourth video clip, I talk about some additional Host Plants for Butterflies including Spicebush and Passion Vine,  as well as what kinds of Butterflies you can expect to attract with the different Host Plants.

In this fifth and final video clip I talk about some additional Butterfly Gardening tools such as portable Butterfly Enclosures and long tweezers.

If you have any questions about these videos, where to buy plants or the additional Butterfly Gardening tools, just send me an email or leave a comment.

Hope you enjoy and it makes sense!

We had 5 shrubs out front, what I thought were Mock Orange plants.  I always liked these plants for a couple of reasons.  One they smell great in the Summer, and second, they attract Giant Swallowtail Butterflies and Hummingbird Moths.

This past Winter they seemed to get hit pretty hard so I thought I would replace them.  I went to RCW Nurseries and asked if they had any Mock Orange in stock.  They did.  Unfortunately, they looked nothing like the Mock Orange that I had in the front of the house.  As I was trying to explain how these shrubs look, I recalled that I posted a couple of pictures on this blog where I specifically called these plants Mock Orange.  Once I showed the lady at RCW Nurseries the pictures, she said, “oh, those aren’t Mock Orange, that’s Lakeview Jasmine.”  Really?  I’ve been calling those shrubs Mock Orange for that past 3-4 years.  I asked if she had these plants in stock and she did not.

So I call Joshua, from Joshua’s Native Plants.  I asked him if he had any Lakeview Jasmine in stock as I love this shrub and it attracts the Giant Swallowtail and Hummingbird Moths.  Joshua immediately tells me that these plants are poisonous to the Giant Swallowtail.  Huh?  I never knew that, but I often wondered why I would see the Giant Swallowtail lay eggs on this plant, yet I never could find any Caterpillars.

Here’s the lesson for today.  Lakeview Jasmine is a wonderful smelling shrub.  It attracts Giant Swallowtail Butterflies.  It will also kill the Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars.

I ended up digging all 5 plants and threw them over the fence.  I think they were dead anyway.

Here are the pictures I posted previously showing a Giant Swallowtail Butterfly laying eggs on the Lakeview Jasmine (what I thought was Mock Orange).

Giant Swallowtail On Lakeview Jasmine

Giant Swallowtail Laying Eggs

If you click on this picture and view it full size, you’ll see there’s a little Blue Dragonfly on one of the plants growing out of the pond.  I didn’t notice that until I downloaded the pictures.  The Turtle in this picture is a Red Eared Slider.

This is a Giant Swallowtail Chrysalis that we found on our Ruby Red Grapefruit tree.

These Butterflies are absolutely huge, and beautiful.  Previously we’ve seen them lay eggs on our Improved Meyer Lemon, Ruby Red Grapefruit, and Republic of Texas Orange trees.  Only rarely have we seen them venture to our front yard to lay eggs on our Mock Orange Lakeview Jasmine shrub, and we’ve never seen any large Caterpillars out there.

Here she is laying eggs

Update: March 19, 2010.  Lakeview Jasmine is poisonous to Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars!