Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Butterfly Gardening In Houston I don’t often see, much less photograph, the American Painted Lady Butterfly, but I was fortunate enough to see one the other day. This Butterfly was feeding on one of the Butterfly Bush’s we have. Obviously Butterflies love this plant, but Hummingbirds love it as well.  Remember the female Monarch that came by to visit the other day? I mentioned that she laid some eggs, and today one of those eggs hatched. I’ve never photographed a Monarch Caterpillar that was a mere minutes old. You can even see its egg casing in the background. It’s quite amazing to me that these…  Woohoo! Our first Fall Migration Monarch appeared today. She was a beautiful, but worn, female. Her colors are a bit faded, and she has some small tears on her bottom left wing, but she appeared strong and was laying eggs. We’ve never tagged Monarchs before, but this year we ordered several hundred tags. Our tags…  This is a Common Green Darner Dragonfly. According to the book I utilize for identifying Dragonflies (Stokes Beginners Guide to Dragonflies), the female has the distinctive bulls-eye on the forehead. In contrast, the Male does not have the distinctive bulls-eye on the forehead, and the thorax is bright green with a blue abdomen.  Saw a couple of Gulf Fritillaries flying around today and managed to get a picture with the Butterfly in flight.  We have very few Butterflies right now, but we are patiently awaiting the arrival of the Fall Monarchs. I was trying to take pictures of the Hummers, but they were a little shy today. The lone Butterfly I saw was this female Horace’s Duskywing Skipper. You can tell this is a female because she has…  Today was the first Queen Butterfly we’ve seen for 2010. She was laying eggs on the Milkweed. I never could manage to get a decent picture of her as she was constantly flying about. You may also notice all the Aphids on the Milkweed. I’ve tried spraying them and wiping them off by hand. I’m… I just received my first newsletter for the Monarch Watch Migration/Tagging of 2010 from Monarch Watch.org (http://www.monarchwatch.org/). You can sign up for their email list on the same page. So as not to plagiarize, I’ll summarize what I thought were interesting notes from the newsletter. They (the Monarch Watch folks) estimate that 50% of the…  It’s been a while since I have posted any Ruby Throated Hummingbird pictures. Also, I’m not really used to seeing Hummingbirds in the Summer, but for some reason we have 3 hanging around. This first photo is a mistake, or at least I thought it was until Leecy said she thought it looked like a…  This is the “Lizard King”, so named because he guards this area with a vengeance. He’s on this pole more days than not, and each time I first see him he always does that red expanded throat thing. Notice how long his tail is? There’s not another Lizard (I know it’s an Anole) in our…  Finally! A Butterfly! Seems like a rare occurrence lately, although it’s probably just because I haven’t been getting home at a decent hour to see them. This is a Gulf Fritillary that was on my multi-colored Butterfly Bush. Probably thought I disappeared, didn’t ya? Nope, haven’t disappeared, just taking a small break. I’ve also been getting home later than normal during the week, and working hard on maintaining the yard on the weekends. Here’s what new or changed as of July 27, 2010. The Purple Martins have all fled the nest. They come…  This guy looks pretty threatening to me. It’s some type of Ant (obviously), but I’m not sure what kind. He was just sitting on one of the Passionvine stems, like waiting to ambush something that would happen to come by. Notice the little hairs on it’s head?  Yesterday when I was strolling around my yard with my Macro lens, I found these interesting things. I can’t think of a Butterfly that lays eggs like this, but I’m really not sure what they are. Does anyone have any idea what type of eggs these are?  Sad day for the 4 remaining Purple Martin Babies. When I was letting the dogs out I noticed one of the baby Purple Martins on the pool decking just sitting there. When I scooped him up, it was pretty clear something was wrong. I called Leecy to come out and help me. She tried to… |
|