Butterfly And Wildlife Gardening And Photography» Dutchman’s Pipevine

First Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly Of 2011 In Wildflowers

texdr — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:18:59 +0000

It was a beautiful day outside and once the weather warmed up just a bit, the Butterflies started emerging from their Chrysalises (Monarchs) or they wandered over to our Butterfly and Hummingbird garden.

This is the first Pipevine Swallowtail we have seen in 2011, and it was going crazy on the red Wildflowers. It was just bouncing from one red Wildflower to the next getting nectar. If you can see the proboscis it’s covered in pollen. While I didn’t notice this Butterfly laying any eggs on our Dutchman’s Pipevine (we have lots of it and it looks really good right now), I’m hopeful that other Pipevine Swallowtails will begin to visit and lay some eggs.

First Pipevine Swallowtail Of 2011 On Red Wildflowers

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars May Make It

texdr — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:12:05 +0000

It looks like the Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars will survive and won’t run out of food. They found almost every small piece of Pipevine (Fimbriata type) and I only see one of them still eating. I found 3 of them near the roof of the house. Two of them already converted to Chrysalis, and the other should turn tomorrow.

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar Eating Stem

I’m going to guess I may not see too many more Pipevine Swallowtail at least for a little while since my Host sources are so low. I guess they could fly by for some of the nectar plants.

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar Looking Large

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!

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars Feeding

texdr — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:08:08 +0000

Finally some Butterfly Caterpillars to talk about.

We’ve got two types of Pipevine, Giant Dutchman’s Pipevine and Dutchman’s Pipevine. I haven’t seen anything on our Giant Dutchman’s Pipevine, but our Dutchman’s Pipevine has lots of Pipevine Butterfly Caterpillars on them. This is also rather interesting (I think I’ve mentioned this before) because last year we didn’t really have any Pipevine Caterpillars, whereas the year before we had lots of them.

So anyway, without further adieu, here are some pictures of the Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars.

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar Feeding

Let me state a disclaimer right now. I’d be more than happy to pay for Leecy’s manicures. She “claims” I interrupted her from her crafting, and that’s why her nails look all…..well that’s why her nails look like they do.

Now on to the Caterpillars.

Two Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars Feeding

Pipevine Swallowtail Lays Eggs On Dutchman’s Pipevine

texdr — Sun, 23 May 2010 20:41:29 +0000

Yesterday I saw what looked like either a Pipevine Swallowtail or a Spicebush Swallowtail flying around the garden. However, by the time I got close enough to get a picture, it had of course moved on. Luckily, Leecy went out in the garden and started looking at the Dutchman’s Pipevine and noticed the eggs (the brown looking things on the stem of the plant).

We have had on and off years with the Pipevine Swallowtails. Two years ago we had lots of them, then last year I don’t think we had one.

Pipevine Eggs On Dutchman Pipevine