Butterflies And Wildlife » Ruby Red Grapefruit

Giant Swallowtail Laying Eggs And Puddling

texdr — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 04:17:02 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, today was the best day so far this year in terms of Butterfly Watching in our backyard.

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

How To Build A Successful Butterfly Garden Videos

texdr — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:07:23 +0000

I thought I would put together some brief videos on how to create a successful Butterfly Garden for my last day of vacation.

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!

Backyard Fruit Crop 2009

texdr — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:16:47 +0000

For those of you who aren’t in Houston, you may not believe it but we actually had snow today! Yes snow! Almost 3-4 inches in some locations. Only about 1/4 inch stayed on the ground in our location. Because of the snow, we decided it would be a good time to pick all of our fruit off of the fruit trees.

Here’s the tally

56 Improved Meyers Lemon (down from over 300 last year)
2 Republic of Texas Oranges
2 Ruby Red Grapefruit

I think the numbers are down in the Improved Meyers Lemon because of the extreme drought we had this year. Even though the numbers are significantly down, the sizes of the Lemons are much larger. Probably twice as big as they were last year.

Oh, that little Apple by the Ruby Red Grapefruit is a “Two-In-One” Apple tree. We only picked 2 of those and they tasted terrible.

Improved Meyers Lemon Crop 09

Ruby Red Grapefruit Crop 09

Republic Of Texas Orange Crop 09

Giant Swallowtail Chrysalis

texdr — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:51:08 +0000

Another first! We’ve seen the Giant Swallowtail adults, we’ve seen the Caterpillars, but we never have been able to find any of the Chrysalises.

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

Giant Swallowtail Chrysalis

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar

texdr — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:28:46 +0000

As I was looking back through this blog I noticed I had only posted 1 picture of the Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar so I figured it was time to post a couple more. Before I get to the pictures, let me share some history. In both my backyard and front yard I have seen the Giant Swallowtail drifting around. In the front yard it likes to lay eggs on our Mock Orange shrubs. In the backyard it will lay eggs on our fruit trees (Moro Blood Orange, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Meyer Lemon, Republic of Texas Orange). While we have seen the Giant Swallowtail Caterpillars eating on the plants, only once have we seen the Chrysalis. Additionally, every single time that we have brought the Caterpillars inside (to protect them from wasps), they have died before reaching the Chrysalis stage.

Recently we noticed that we had 2 caterpillars on our Ruby Red Grapefruit tree. Rather than bring them inside (since I have 100% failure with that) we covered the tree with a protective cover. So today we go out to check and see how the Caterpillars are doing, and one of them was absolutely huge!

Now on to the pictures. The first one is the Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar next to Leecy’s finger. You’d never guess that bird poop looking thing would turn into such a beautiful Butterfly.

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar

This next shot is what the Caterpillar will do when it feels threatened. It pops up those big horn looking things and emits a spray (Leecy describes it as a bad fruit smell).

Giant Swallowtail Giving Warning