Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Mexican Milkweed 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…  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…  Another great day for the Fall 2011 Migration of Monarch Butterflies through Houston. I saw a total of 7 today, and tagged 5 of them. There were roughly the same amount of males and females. I mentioned this on the Journey South site, but what I’m noticing this year compared to previous years is how…  Houston, we have a problem! I found 5 Monarch Caterpillars today. The problem with that is that I’ve been on vacation all week and I’ve never seen any Monarch Butterflies. Leecy gets home well before dark, and she hasn’t seen any Monarch Butterflies either. So where did they come from? Were they Monarchs migrating from…  I need to get a few things off my chest (actually just one thing). This drought. It’s driving me nuts. This whole weather thing is driving me nuts actually. On the East Coast they’re flooding. Down here in Texas we’re drying up. Is this the effects of global warming? What will this wacky weather mean…  Another great day for the Monarch Butterflies! We released a total of 9 Monarch Butterflies today. I said yesterday that I was going to try and record some video of this event, and I did, but the videos didn’t come out as good as I would have liked, so I’m just going to post some…  What a difference a day makes! Today was a beautiful day, nothing but sunshine. That, in turn, brought out the hungry Monarch Caterpillars. I was totally surprised when I went outside to check on them and found out that they were clustering on the two remaining Milkweed plants they had not already devoured. I’m going…  I had no idea we had so many Monarch Caterpillars! Because of their size, I decided it would be in the best interest of their safety if I moved them to our Butterfly Enclosure. There are six Milkweed plants in the Enclosure. With so many Monarch Caterpillars, I don’t expect these plants to have many…  We have lots and lots of Monarch Caterpillars right now from the original female Monarch Butterfly we saw a couple of weeks ago. It’s rather interesting as all of these Monarch Caterpillars are roughly the same size. I even recording a brief video of just one of our Milkweed plants and all of the Caterpillars. …  Yea! Our second female Monarch Butterfly appeared today! She wasted no time in laying eggs on our Milkweed. She also made several visits to our Wildflower Garden to get some nectar. She must have hung around for at least 3 hours today. She looked pretty good, especially coming from Mexico (I’m assuming). Her wings were…  Just a brief update tonight since I am getting home late. I’ll be posting lots of pictures this weekend, especially since we now have lots of Monarch Caterpillars. I just checked some of our Milkweed plants tonight, and many of them are covered in Monarch Caterpillars. The picture below is just one plant (and not…  I got home while there was still a little bit of daylight left, so I grabbed my camera to take some pictures of the Butterfly Caterpillars we have. First are the Eastern Black Swallowtail Caterpillars. We have quite a few of these now, we’ve counted around 20, but our Fennel is so thick, I’m sure…  Boy, it’s been a real challenge trying to get pictures of this female Monarch Butterfly who has been laying eggs in the newly sprouted Milkweed. Most of the Milkweed I have is very low to the ground, and many of the plants have lots of dead, distracting stems. Based on the number of eggs I…  Well I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news (actually great news as far as I’m concerned) is that our first Monarch from Mexico appeared today (March 11, 2011). She’s a female, and shows some decent signs of wear, but overall looked pretty healthy. Most of my Milkweed is just now sprouting, so…  I released 3 Monarch Butterflies today (they eclosed three days ago). Two of the Butterflies immediately flew away as soon as they were released, but one Male Monarch decided to hang around and sun himself. Speaking of Monarch Butterflies, we currently have 8 Chrysalises, 2 Caterpillars (who are likely sick..I’ll explain shortly), and 4 adult… |
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