Butterfly And Wildlife Gardening And Photography» Question Mark

Question Mark Butterfly

texdr — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:51:11 +0000

We don’t see too many of these Butterflies in our backyard. It’s a Question Mark Butterfly.

It’s flight pattern is very erratic, darting from one area to the next. I took this picture (at dusk) when it was resting on our Maple tree.

Question Mark Butterfly On Maple Tree

Butterflies Were Everywhere Today

texdr — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:30:57 +0000

Holy Cow! Today there were Butterflies everywhere in the backyard. We had a Monarch, Question Mark, Variegated Fritillary, Giant Swallowtail, Gray Hairstreak, Eastern Black Swallowtail, some type of Crescent Butterfly, and a Pipevine Swallowtail.

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!

Finally Some Butterflies

texdr — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:36:44 +0000

Once we finished walking along the creek (or river), we hiked along a trail that had lots of vines, low grasses, and in one case, a tasty roof (I’ll explain shortly). Some of these Butterflies I have never seen in my backyard, so it was refreshing to witness something new.

Here’s a Gray Hairstreak. I actually do see these guys in the backyard occasionally, but I’ve never been able to get a picture.

Gray Hairstreak

Then there was a Pipevine. I must have tried to take over 50 photos of this Butterfly while it was in flight and none were in focus. Fortunately for me, he decided to take a break along the trail and I snapped away.

Pipevine Swallowtail Resting

Here’s a Butterfly I’ve never seen before. It’s a Variegated Fritillary

Variegated Fritillary

Is the Butterfly below a Monarch? Nope, it’s a Viceroy.

Viceroy Butterfly

The differences between a Viceroy and a Monarch are Viceroy’s don’t host on Milkweed, and they have a thick black line loops across their lower wing.

Viceroy Butterfly Wings Open

Last but not least is the Question Mark Butterfly. These Butterflies prefer to get nectar from tree sap, rotting fruit, animal droppings, and roofing?

For some unknown reason, this Butterfly was sipping at something on this roof. No idea why unless the roofing contained some type of sap.

Question Mark Butterfly

That Stinks!

texdr — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:03:16 +0000

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 grapes that were going soft I decided to put them out in one of our Bird Baths. Within the first day, it was pretty obvious that the Honeybees were thrilled to have another source of nectar besides our Lemon tree, but then one day I captured this Butterfly.

It’s a Butterfly called a Question Mark. I kept putting out more and more grapes for a period of weeks, but never attracted too many more Butterflies. I continually attracted lots of Honeybees (which I don’t mind with all the fruit trees in our yard that need pollinating), but then it also started to attract those Red Wasps.

Question Mark Butterfly