Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Monarch We’re still raising Monarch Butterflies despite it being late January. Of course, this is Houston and today’s temperature was 78 degrees so it’s not like we’re having a lot of cold weather at the moment. I had forgotten how our Maple Tree is a source of nectar for Butterflies and Honeybees until I saw this…  I have a couple of exciting news items to share (at least they’re exciting to me). I made an impulse buy over the holidays and bought a new Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 II lens. From most of the reviews I’ve read on the web, this lens gets rave reviews. Since I sold my 100-400mm lens… Hopefully some folks will find this post useful in their Butterfly Gardening. Below is a video that I recorded today of Leecy gluing some Monarch Chrysalises to a piece of cardboard. We tend to do this during Winter months when we still have Caterpillars and Chrysalises and want to protect them from inclement weather (rainy,…  I know I haven’t posted in a while, I’m just taking it easy. It’s also been a little more challenging to take photos since it gets dark so early. So on to this post. I’m guessing that most folks don’t think about Butterflies two days before Christmas, but I wanted to share our Monarch Butterfly…  We still have lots of Monarch Butterflies flying around the yard and even more Monarch Caterpillars. Most of the Butterflies look very clean, not like they have been migrating for several hundred miles so I’m assuming these are new releases. What I’ve also noticed is that these Butterflies are mating, and in the case of…  We’ve had around 7-8 “new” Monarch Butterflies arrive withing the last two days, but they definitely weren’t new. These poor Butterflies were as torn and worn as I’ve ever seen in Monarchs. Take a look at the male Monarch in the picture below. He has that torn upper wing and had difficulty flying from flower…  The Monarch Butterfly tagging and release continues. Beautiful sunshine today although a little chilly in the morning. We had our last (at the moment) indoor Monarch Chrysalis eclose today (it was a female). Actually she eclosed yesterday but it was very windy and cold yesterday so we decided to release her today. In addition…  With the South winds blow very strong the last few days, it’s no surprise that we have seen a decrease in migrating Monarchs. Right now we manage to see about 1 new Monarch per day, which is quite different than last week where we were seeing 15 new Monarchs per day. Tonight, just around dusk,…  Three new Monarch Butterflies today (4 if you count the deformed wing Monarch I posted about earlier). One was a returning male Monarch that we had previously tagged. It was feeding in the early morning on the white flowers of the Butterfly Bush. The second one was one that we had not previously tagged and…  I’ve had a few people write or call me upset that their Monarch Butterflies either did not form a proper Chrysalis or that the Butterfly was born with deformed, crinkled wings. Today, I had the same experience (it’s happened many, many times). I thought I would take a moment to comment on my understanding of…  The Fall 2011 Migration of Monarch Butterflies was much slower today than the last two days. I only saw 1 untagged Monarch who didn’t appear until late in the afternoon. It was a good day for photography and Monarchs. We had 1 Monarch (a female) who eclosed today from the outdoor Butterfly enclosure. Here’s the…  Another great day for the Fall 2011 Migration of Monarch Butterflies through Houston. I saw a total of 7 today, and tagged 5 of them. There were roughly the same amount of males and females. I mentioned this on the Journey South site, but what I’m noticing this year compared to previous years is how…  Wouldn’t you know it? We get a nice cold front blowing through yesterday, and today (while I’m at work) Leecy witnesses one of the largest group of Migrating Monarchs we have seen in our backyard. Leecy took both the picture and video with her camera, so I’ll let her do the narration. Hi! Well, yes…  Yea! The first Fall migrating Monarch Butterfly of 2011 (at least the first one I’ve seen) has arrived. I might have seen two, but since I only was able to take a picture of one of them, I’ll just say one for now. I spotted the male Monarch on our pink Butterfly Bush (a Hummingbird…  Houston, we have a problem! I found 5 Monarch Caterpillars today. The problem with that is that I’ve been on vacation all week and I’ve never seen any Monarch Butterflies. Leecy gets home well before dark, and she hasn’t seen any Monarch Butterflies either. So where did they come from? Were they Monarchs migrating from… |
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