Butterflies And Wildlife » Passion Vine

Big Ant Hiding In Passionvine

texdr — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:57:26 +0000

This guy looks pretty threatening to me.

Big Ant On Passionvine

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?

Variegated Fritillary Basking

texdr — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:15:17 +0000

I saw 3 of these yesterday. That’s more than I’ve ever seen in the backyard. Two of them would chase each other, while the other just laid eggs.

This might be one of the better pictures I’ve taken of a Variegated as she rested on a rock right in front of me.

Variegated Fritillary Basking On Rock

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, Grey 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!

Variegated Fritillary Laying Eggs

texdr — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:26:44 +0000

This is a first. We’ve had tons of Gulf Fritillaries in previous years, but never have we seen a Variegated Fritillary in our backyard, and certainly not one that was laying eggs.

Hopefully she laid quite a few eggs as I would really love to see these Caterpillars mature so I can get some pictures of them.

Variegated Fritillary Laying Eggs On Passionvine

Passionvine’s Are Beautiful But Strange Looking

texdr — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:18:02 +0000

I really love the flowers on the Passionvine (or is it Passion Vine?). Our single Passionvine is growing all over the place behind the pool and is just now starting to bloom.

It’s also starting to attract the Fritillaries.

I’m not sure if you can see it from this post, but on one of the tendrils on the right hand side, there is a tiny little Grasshopper.

Closeup Of Passionvine In Morning Light

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!

Butterfly Brawl

texdr — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:26:52 +0000

After the dreary, rainy day we had yesterday, it was a welcome sight to have nothing but sunshine and blue skies today. The beautiful weather also brought out all the Butterflies. It also brought out the “territorialness” in all the male Butterflies. Probably the most aggressive was this male Monarch pictured below. He would rest right above one section of Milkweed and as soon as another Butterfly (Gulf Fritillary, Cloudless Sulphur, Polydamas Swallowtail) would come flying by he would chase them off. When a female Monarch happened to fly by, he would try and mate with her. I’m not sure he ever succeeded on that part (he would chase her, but I never saw them mating).

Male Monarch Patrolling Territory

This Gulf Fritillary was also chasing females. In the picture below, he was resting on the plant that was next to the Passion Vine. Although I didn’t get any pictures of them today, we also have lots of Fritillary caterpillars right now.

Gulf Fritillary Warming Wings

Guess What’s For Dinner?

texdr — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:17:53 +0000

I’ve got an interesting picture for y’all.

In the early summer we had lots of little Lizards (Anoles). Now it seems as most of those Lizards have grown up and become big and fat. Check out these photos of a Lizard stalking some prey.

Hmm, possible dinner?

Lizard Looking For Dinner

Guess this wasp won’t become dinner tonight.

Lizard Watching Dinner Fly Away

Passion Vine Flower Up Close

texdr — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:08:24 +0000

Although we’re not seeing any Fritillaries right now, that hasn’t stopped our Passion Vine from flowering like crazy.

Here’s a close up shot of one of the flowers. Probably one of the strangest looking flowers there is. If you click on the picture, you can even see the pollen on the flower.

Passion Vine Flower

Desperate Fritillary

texdr — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:57:48 +0000

Our Passionvine is growing all over the place, like up the Queen Palm, on the Bamboo, across the Milkweed, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that a Gulf Fritillary really cares all that much where the plant is growing, or even if it is growing. Here’s the story.

I was cutting some Passionvine to bring inside for the Fritillary caterpillars. I cut just a bit more than I needed so I put the excess on the BBQ grill. Not 5 minutes after I did this and some Fritillary comes flying by and starts laying eggs on the cut Passionvine. Now why this Butterfly would choose this little piece of Passionvine over the actual huge plant I have no idea.

Fritillary On Picked Passionvine

Later a Fritillary was sucking up some nectar on the Purple Coneflower

Fritillary On Purple Coneflower