Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Gulf Fritillary I did take my trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. Specifically I went to the Skillern Tract part of the refuge. I can’t recommend this part of the wildlife refuge highly enough. It is awesome! From what I read, it’s still relatively unknown among birders, but that probably won’t last for long. I actually went…  I’ve mentioned previously that we really haven’t seen many Gulf Fritillary Butterflies this year. I still think the drought has something to do with that. However, while I was out photographing the Monarch Butterflies, I noticed a smaller Butterfly chasing the Monarchs. It turns out it was a Gulf Fritillary. I’m assuming this one is…  Before this year and the drought we have experienced, one of the most common Butterflies we had in the backyard was the Gulf Fritillary. That has not been the case this year. We have seen very few and as a result our Passion Vine is taking over one area of the garden (from the lack…  Finally a Butterfly appeared in the garden! We’ve seen next to nothing this entire summer. Everyone in this area just wants the Summer to be over, and to get a little rain. The Butterfly that appeared was a Gulf Fritillary and it showed up right after I was done watering the Zinnia garden.  I finally got a chance to take out my new lens, the Canon EF 300 f2.8, and it was a real treat. This lens picks up so much detail it’s amazing! I also got a chance to take a picture of a bird utilizing my new bird pond/photography blind I built last week. I took…  Today was a big release day for Monarch Butterflies. We released a total of 6 Monarchs today. We also found a Monarch and Gulf Fritillary feeding on the Mexican Flame Vine. My plan was to place each of the 6 Monarchs on this Cherry Blossom and take a few pictures. Of course that plan failed… I don’t have any pictures to share tonight but I thought I’d provide an update on our Butterfly Garden, particularly with the Monarchs. Strangely enough, we have quite a few Monarch Butterflies right now. We’ve been releasing 1-2 Monarchs per day for the last couple of weeks. In a way, this makes some sense. In…  In addition to the Monarchs, the Gulf Fritillary Butterflies are taking advantage of the warm weather and laying eggs and getting nectar from the Trailing Purple Lantana. I’m not sure how long this plant is supposed to stay in bloom, but it is really doing well.  As I’m sure most of the folks in the U.S. are experiencing, we are bracing for a big cold front here in Houston. Yea, I know, how cold does Houston really get, but when it’s been 82-83 degrees that last two days and tonight it’s dropping down to 31 this weekend, that’s cold for us….  These dang Gulf Fritillary Chrysalises just ruined any plans I had for the hot tub. I wrote last week about how we had all these Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars on our Passion Vine. Yea, well now these Caterpillars have moved on to the Chrysalis stage and decided that the best place to attach themselves is around…  I got a big surprise today. I went outside to see if there were any Butterflies flying around. I noticed a Gulf Fritillary flying nearby the Passion Vine so I went to investigate. Holy Cow! There were tons of Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars all over the Passion Vine. I’d guess there were 50 or more. I’ve…  The Milkweed around the yard has been a popular place for all kinds of Butterflies the last few days. All of our Milkweed has lots of flowers right now, so I’m sure that’s part of the appeal. The majority of the Milkweed is also in the direct sun so it’s a convenient place to warm…  We still had quite a few Butterflies today, but a few less Monarchs than yesterday. The Butterflies that were really abundant today were the Gulf Fritillaries. 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…  Hi this is Leecy. I did all the work and took all the photos today so he wanted me to write my story. L called me today at work today and said that the chrysalis in the house probably will hatch today, so check it when I got home. So, when I got home, I…  I took a couple of pictures today of an event that I’ve never been able to photograph before. Butterfly Caterpillar’s shedding their skin. This first one is a Gulf Fritillary. These are scary looking Caterpillars. Notice at the bottom left of the Caterpillar is the skin that it recently shed. This second picture of a… |
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