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 story.
While we didn’t see many Monarch Butterflies during the migration, we saw several after the expected migration, and we had quite a bit of Milkweed. The result?
Lots of Monarch Butterfly Chrysalises!
.jpg "Carrier Full Of Monarch Chrysalises") Carrier Full Of Monarch Chrysalises We’ve only had a couple of really cold days in Houston (we moved the Milkweed to the garage during that time) with the majority of the Winter being quite nice. Apparently the Monarch Caterpillars like it as well as it’s given them some time to stock up on eating Milkweed. Since we knew it was supposed to get a little cold and rainy (just 38 degrees or so), we decided to bring the Chrysalises indoors. The result is what you see above. Those black dots next to a couple of the Chrysalises are the skin of the Caterpillars.
We don’t just leave them in this little carrier, Leecy glues them to these cardboard things we have. I’ll try and post a picture or video of that within the next couple of days so you can see how we do that. Once the Butterfly emerges we release them as long as it’s reasonably sunny and above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pretty neat huh?
Here is part 2 of my vacationing and birding trip to Quintana.
First is a Field Sparrow sitting in a tree. Their were others on its species just outside the frame of this picture.
 Field Sparrow In Tree Another small bird I saw who appeared pretty tired was a White Throated Sparrow hiding in a bunch of twigs (at least I hope that’s what it is)
White Throated Sparrow Hiding In Twigs Yet another Sparrow, this one I believe is a Savannah Sparrow. Nope, it’s a Song Sparrow.
Song Sparrow In Tree One more that took me a while to figure out, was a Rose Breasted Grosbeak
Rose Breasted Grosbeak In Mix Of Trees If we head over towards the beach and jetty, there are lots of birds over there as well. The Ruddy Turnstone was a common bird that I saw.
Three Ruddy Turnstones On A Log After standing on the log for a while, one decides to walk around.
Ruddy Turnstone Walking Down Log It then stops and appears to stare at it’s reflection.
Ruddy Turnstone Staring At Reflection
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I just got back from taking a 3 day vacation in Quintana, Texas. Quoting their web page, “Quintana is an island located between the mouth of the Old Brazos River and the New Brazos River on the Texas Gulf Coast.” My purpose in going there was just to relax and visit the Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary. Leecy also wanted me out of the house so she told me to have fun and take Sascha (our black German Shepherd) with you:-).
I’ll warn any potential visitors now. There’s not much to do there other than go birding and relax (and fish which I did not do). For me, it was perfect! I was also fortunate enough to hook back up with Greg Lavaty who is one of the premier birders and bird photographers in Texas. Greg came out to visit on my first day in town and we immediately went out birding. Birding with Greg is always a great experience for me for a couple of reasons. One, that guy can spot a bird before I’ve even looked in the general direction of a bird. Second, he’s a great bird photographer and I always learn about bird photography when he and I have a chance to visit. I must confess, I also always have a negative experience in birding with Greg as well. Every time I see him with the Canon EF 500mm lens I get jealous:-).
Now on to the birds, at least some of them that I saw and photographed (I’m breaking this post into 2 different sections so the page doesn’t take forever to load). One of my favorite shots that I took on my next to last day was of a Brown Pelican. The reason that this is one of my favorite shots is because I’m used to taking pictures of things that aren’t in motion, or standing still, not birds in flight. What I was excited about is that I captured this Brown Pelican floating along in the sky, then suddenly it did a nose dive into the water.
Brown Pelican Hovering Before Diving Brown Pelican Turning To Dive Brown Pelican Diving Straight To The Water Brown Pelican Lifting From Water After Empty Dive Some of the other shots I like were of a Crested Caracara and a Harlan’s Hawk. The Harlan’s Hawk (which I would have never identified without Greg telling me) used to be considered a separate species from a Red Tailed Hawk, but now is considered a “morph.” It’s not that my pictures are that great, rather it’s that this bird is somewhat rare. As to how this Hawk is of the same species as a Red Tailed Hawk I have no idea as they certainly don’t look similar to me.
Harlan's Hawk On Telephone Pole Harlan's Hawk In Flight Harlan's Hawk With Wings Fully Spread The Crested Caracara is an interesting looking bird to me. This bird almost looks like it would be from Africa or something, not a bird that you would expect to find in Texas (or Florida).
Crested Caracara Resting On Fence Pole Quintana also has a jetty where some folks decide to fish. Interestingly enough, I didn’t see one person in 3 days who ever had a single fish, but I did see a giant rat which would have walked right over me if I hadn’t moved out of the way. I’m not joking, this rat started from much further down the jetty, then would dart in and out of the rocks, and was going to walk right into me.
Big Brown Rat Staring At Me On The Jetty Another favorite that I photographed was a Le Conte’s Sparrow. Confession: I wouldn’t have been as excited if I hadn’t seen Greg get so excited since I had no clue what type of bird this was initially. This poor bird was exhausted, and since it was on the Jetty, it likely had spent the night flying over water and this was the first bit of land it had found. These are pretty secretive birds who tend to hide in grassy fields and marsh edges, not walking on concrete around a bunch of fisherman.
Le Conte's Sparrow Walking On Quintana Jetty Le Conte's Sparrow On Quintana Jetty Resting Le Conte's Sparrow Resting On Rock At Quintana Jetty I’ll do my best to post some additional pictures and commentary this weekend for Part Two of my vacation in Quintana, Texas.
I did take my trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. Specifically I went to the Skillern Tract part of the refuge. I can’t recommend this part of the wildlife refuge highly enough. It is awesome! From what I read, it’s still relatively unknown among birders, but that probably won’t last for long. I actually went to the Skillern Tract first, then to the main Refuge, and because of the drought, they actually recommended that folks go to Skillern versus the main part of the Refuge. Before I go into the details of the trip, to get to the Skillern Tract, go East past the main entrance for 7.3 miles and you will see it on the right hand side.
When I first got to Skillern the first creatures to greet me were the mosquitoes, big ones and lots of them. Fortunately I brought the mosquito repellant so they didn’t overwhelm me. As I walked along one of the trails there was this pretty little bird darting up and down from a tall tree. It was a female Vermillion Flycatcher. I love these little birds!
Female Vermillion Flycatcher Side View Female Vermillion Flycatcher Front View There were also lots of Northern Harriers and these birds are fun for me to photograph. Since they float above their potential prey, it gave me a good opportunity to get some decent photographs.
Northern Harrier About To Land In Field Northern Harrier Hovering Over A Possible Meal At Skillern there were lots of open fields, and I’m sure I missed a tons of birds. One bird that I’ve never photographed before was an Eastern Meadowlark hiding in the field.
Eastern Meadowlark In Field In addition I saw lots of Savannah Sparrows.
Savannah Sparrow In Field Of Brown Savannah Sparrow Resting On Branch In Field A particular noisy little bird that I saw hiding in the woods was a Winter Wren.
Winter Wren Hiding In The Woods These are just a few of the many, many birds I saw at Skillern. I took alot of bad photographs, and missed many opportunities.
Birds weren’t the only creatures I saw. There were lots of Gulf Fritillary Butterflies (that surprised me) and a few Monarch Butterflies. I was really surprised by how bright the color was on the Gulf Fritillaries.
Very Bright Orange Gulf Fritillary At Skillern Tract I called Leecy a few hours into my trip and she said she wanted to see a picture of an Alligator. I was lucky enough to find one sunning on the shore.
Alligator At Skillern Tract In Anahuac I really, really enjoyed Skillern Tract of the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge and plan on returning once they weather cools down a bit. You absolutely have to bring mosquito repellant otherwise you will be eaten alive. Even though I was well coated at the beginning, apparently the stuff wears off because I was attacked later on. I re-coated myself and all was well.
I’m posting this for my own benefit as much as anyone else. By posting this, it will force me to wake up early and do what I intend to do.
I’m planning on revisiting Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge tomorrow (Saturday). I think it’s been almost a year since I was last out there. Even then, I remember how low the water levels were. It’s a great birding location (in my opinion). While I’m not very good at identifying the birds, I always enjoy my time out there. It is so quiet and desolate and I actually like that type of serenity.
Oh, I also bought a couple of new “things.” One is the Vortex Viper 8×42 HD Binocular and the other is the Naturescapes SkimmerSack Bean Bag. The binoculars are for birdwatching and identification and the Skimmersack is for photography when shooting from your car (or fence post, etc). I really do want to become better at identifying birds so I figured the binoculars may help somewhat for the birds I see and want to identify before trying to sneak up on them to take a picture. I’ll try and post some reviews sometime soon of both of these, as well as some new birding books I recently bought.
I’ll be posting pictures from the Anahuac trip later this weekend.
I’ve mentioned previously that we really haven’t seen many Gulf Fritillary Butterflies this year. I still think the drought has something to do with that. However, while I was out photographing the Monarch Butterflies, I noticed a smaller Butterfly chasing the Monarchs. It turns out it was a Gulf Fritillary.
I’m assuming this one is a male since it made no attempt to visit the Passion Vine and instead spent its time eating nectar from Lantana and Zinnia.
Gulf Fritillary Feeding On Purple Flower
Gulf Fritillary Feeding On Orange Zinnia
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 other males, chasing each other.
Monarch With With Wings Spread Wide In Early Morning Sun Clean Monarch Butterfly Feeding On Red Zinnia We’ve also located several (around 15 at last count) Monarch Caterpillars on the Milkweed. The two guys are the picture below were so tiny I almost didn’t see them. It’s been like this for several days; we check the Milkweed for Caterpillars, see none, and assume there are none. Two days later, we see little Caterpillars like these.
Two Tiny Monarch Caterpillars Feeding Off Same Leaf There are also several large Caterpillars on the Milkweed. I brought them inside for one day since it was a little chilly, then took them back outside the next day since the weather has been really nice.
Large Monarch Caterpillar Upside Down In Between Two Milkweed Stems
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 to flower.
Male Monarch With Torn Wing On Pink Zinnia Then the next day he was back flying over the Zinnias and battling other males. I can’t imagine this guy would ever make it to Mexico, but what do I know.
Male Monarch With Torn Wing On Orange Zinnia The male in the pictures above wasn’t the most damaged Monarch that came to visit. Check out this one on the pink Zinnia. It’s missing a whole bunch of different parts of both wings, but that’s not the worst.
Tattered Monarch On Pink Zinnia Have a look at this poor thing when it has its wings spread. Look the male in the previous photographs, I can’t imagine this Monarch making it all the way to Mexico in this condition.
Very Tattered Monarch With Wings Spread On Pink Zinnia It’s not all bad news. We did have some “newer” looking Monarchs appear as well. This male appeared later in the afternoon. He was drawn to this red Zinnia that has a little bit of Maggie’s (our Golden Retriever) hair in the middle. We also counted 15 Monarch caterpillars on the different Milkweed plants throughout the backyard. We’re letting them stay outdoors since the weather has been so nice.
Monarch On Red Zinnia With Dog Hair In Middle One last thing and I’d like to hear thoughts from others that tag Monarchs. The last few days I’ve decided not to tag Monarchs. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, some of these Monarchs are so torn up I didn’t want to even attempt to try and attach a sticker to their wing. The second reason (and this is the part I’m curious on what others have to say) is that it seems tagging these Monarchs causes them a little stress. We’ve noticed that in many of the Monarchs we tag don’t come back to the yard after we tag them. The ones we don’t tag frequent the yard for a few days. I’m thinking that as much as these Monarchs need nectar for their flight to Mexico (especially this year), I don’t want to stress them out and have them struggle to find other nectar sources when I have so much in my yard.
What do you think? Have you observed Monarchs being stressed from tagging? How do you think it affects them?
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.
Female Monarch Basking In The Sun On Yellow Zinnia
Female Monarch Basking In The Sun On Yellow Zinnia Side View In addition to the female Monarch that we released today, we also tagged a male with a torn wing (no pictures), and had a returning male Monarch.
Previously Tagged Male Monarch On Orange Zinnia Previously Tagged Male Monarch On White Zinnia Thus far we have tagged a total of 20 Monarchs so far this season.
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, I noticed a Monarch flying all around the backyard, but never landing on anything. I wondered if it was trying to find a suitable place to rest for the evening, so I intentionally did not try and tag it.
It turns out I was correct. It’s a male Monarch who decided to spend the night in our Maple Tree (I just checked, he’s still out there at 9:51 pm). I had to use my flash, otherwise I would have never gotten the shot. He looks a little worn on the sides, and is missing a few pieces of wing on the bottom, but he can definitely fly well. He probably spent a good 20 minutes flying around the yard decided where he was going to roost for the night.
I wish there were a way to plan for this, but wouldn’t it be awesome to have a big roost of Monarch Butterflies in your yard for the night? I know Maple trees are not the preferred resting place, and I would dread putting up a decent size Pine tree in my yard, but it’s a nice thought, nonetheless.
So for the tree and Monarch experts out there or just Monarch lovers that have witnessed a decent roost, what types of trees in the Houston area would/do they prefer? Does anyone have any good idea?
Male Monarch Butterfly Resting For The Night In Maple Tree Worn Male Monarch Butterfly Resting For The Night
I think I took this shot, but I told Leecy she probably took this picture just to make her feel good (she may have taken this picture as she was experimenting with my camera).
Honeybees Crowding Around Hummingbird Feeder In Zinnia Garden We have lots of Honeybees right now all over the garden. Some are on the flowers, and some tend to have a preference for the Hummingbird feeder (we still have 1 female Hummingbird hanging around). Obviously we have this Hummingbird feeder in our Zinnia garden, and it just so happens we got a picture of the Honeybees going nuts over the sugar water and some of them in flight.
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.
Male Monarch Butterfly On White Butterfly Bush Against Sky Background The second one was one that we had not previously tagged and it was getting nectar from one of the yellow Zinnia flowers.
Untagged Monarch On Yellow Zinnia The final Monarch Butterfly we saw today is one that emerged from our outdoor Butterfly enclosure. I cheated on this picture because I intentionally placed it on the Shrimp plant while it was expanding and drying its wings. I just wanted a different picture from what I’ve been taking.
Monarch Butterfly Inflating Wings On Shrimp Plant
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 why this may happen.
First, the image below is a picture of the Butterfly that we found in the yard today, unable to fly, and with deformed wings. There’s not really much you can do if the Butterfly cannot fly, although in the past I have raised one that did have this condition and somehow it mated (a male Monarch attached itself while the Butterfly was feeding on Milkweed), laid eggs, and had many offspring. You can read the multiple stories about this adventure of “Timothia” by clicking here, and reading from the bottom up.
Deformed Monarch Butterfly Found In Yard My understanding of why this can occur (as why as Monarch caterpillars fail to form a Chrysalis) is related to several factors. One of the most common is due to the OE (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha) parasite. Before I go further, for good explanations of OE, I recommend Valerie Evanson’s Monarch Diseases site and The University of Minnesota’s Monarch Lab. Unfortunately, this parasite is very common (I think I recall up to 70% of Monarch Butterflies in the South). In layman’s terms, this parasite essentially weakens the Butterfly or Caterpillar and often the Chrysalises fail to form, turn brown, or results in a Butterfly with deformed, crinkled wings. There is loads of information on the web about how to test a Butterfly for this parasite (yes I have and do, do this) and a microscope. Since I know folks don’t tend to want to read long blog posts from me, just do a search for Monarch Butterfly OE Disease.
What has also been a somewhat common occurrence is when Monarch Caterpillars fail to form a Chrysalis. Besides OE, Monarchs can be attacked by the Tachnid Fly. Again, you can do a search on that term, but what happens in my experience is that Monarch Caterpillars that fail to form a Chrysalis (just hanging limp from the original “J” shape), or the Butterfly fails to form from the Chrysalis. In both of these instances, you may notice a long white string emerging from the Caterpillar or Chrysalis, and eventually you’d see these little fly larvae (it’s as gross as it sounds).
There are other diseases and parasites that can affect Monarch Butterflies and Caterpillars, but those are two of the most common in my experience.
If you read my stories on “Timothia” you’ll see that was quite a series of events (almost miraculous), but I wouldn’t advise doing that now. The reason is because it likely just spreads further diseases among the Monarchs, and they need all the help that they can get. When I have a deformed Monarch with crinkled wings, I simply place it in a plastic bag, then place it in the freezer. It’s the most humane thing I can think of to do.
Before this year and the drought we have experienced, one of the most common Butterflies we had in the backyard was the Gulf Fritillary. That has not been the case this year. We have seen very few and as a result our Passion Vine is taking over one area of the garden (from the lack of Caterpillars eating the leaves).
I remember when I went to the Cockrell Butterfly Center a few weeks ago for their Fall plant sale that Nancy Greig, Ph.D. basically said the same thing. She had seen very few Gulf Fritillaries this year. I haven’t read any hypothesis as to why this is occurring, but I’d be interested in hearing ideas from others.
Despite what I said above, I finally did see a Gulf Fritillary Butterfly today. It was flying around the Passion Vine, but I didn’t notice this one laying any eggs.
Gulf Fritillary On Passionvine Oct 2011
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 interesting part. I take this new Monarch out of the Butterfly enclosure and place her on an orange Zinnia to let her wings continue to dry out. Suddenly, another female Monarch appears, one that we had tagged previously, and she lands right beside the one that I just placed on the Zinnia. Out comes the camera for that!
The one on the right is the tagged Monarch, the one on the left is the one that recently emerged from the Chrysalis.
Newly Hatched Monarch And Previously Tagged Monarch On Orange Zinnia The rest of the pictures I just enjoyed taking today at different times.
Monarch Butterfly On Orange Zinnia With Wildflower Background Monarch Butterfly On Pink Zinnia With Blooming Zinnia In Background
Monarch Butterfly On Pink And Yellow Zinnia
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by texdr
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