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

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

Strangely enough, we have quite a few Monarch Butterflies right now.  We’ve been releasing 1-2 Monarchs per day for the last couple of weeks.  In a way, this makes some sense.  In October and November, the Monarchs we saw were likely migrating to Mexico and had not yet mated.  The Monarch Butterflies we are seeing right now have definitely mated, and are laying lots of eggs.  As we find the Caterpillars, we bring them inside and give them fresh Milkweed.  Could these just be local Monarchs that spend much of their time in the warmer climates?  They definitely don’t appear to be as worn as the October/November Monarchs were.  Another little interesting tidbit.  The majority of the Monarchs that we have been releasing have been female.  I’d say the ratio is like 3:1.

Right now we have 2 female Monarchs that we should be able to release tomorrow, and there’s a good chance another 2-3 will become Butterflies by morning.

We also have several Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars, Chrysalises, and Butterflies.  We haven’t been bringing in as many Caterpillars from this species inside as they tend to hide a bit better than the Monarchs (at least in our yard).

We’ve had a few days of below freezing temperatures, but not for very long (typical of Houston).  We have been covering much of our outdoor Milkweed with a clear shower curtain (Leecy’s idea) and that appears to give the Milkweed sufficient light, protects them from frost, and also serves as a nice bit of insulation.

Fortunately for the Butterflies, we still have quite a few Nectar plants (Lantana, Milkweed, Penta, Mexican Flame Vine) that have been providing the necessary food that these insects require.

This upcoming week is also Christmas!  Leecy says she doesn’t want anything for Christmas and wants to do something for a needy family so we’re going shopping tomorrow to buy some presents for whomever we decide to give them to.  There is a family we are thinking about that have 3 kids, so we talked about buying 3 bikes for them.  My idea is just do drop the bikes off during Christmas Eve night and let them think it’s from Santa.  I’d prefer they not know they were from Leecy and I.

Also this upcoming week I’ll be receiving my rented Canon 300mm f2.8 lens.  I’m really looking forward to shooting with this lens.  If I like it, and I don’t end up taking that trip to Mexico, I’ll probably end up buying one early next year.

That’s about it on this end.  I’m going to try and take some pictures of the Monarch Butterflies that we’ll release tomorrow so check back if you’re interested in seeing the pictures.

I went outside to see if there were any Butterflies flying around.  I noticed a Gulf Fritillary flying nearby the Passion Vine so I went to investigate.

Holy Cow!  There were tons of Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars all over the Passion Vine. I’d guess there were 50 or more.

I’ve seen the Gulf Fritillaries around for the last few months, but nothing out of the ordinary.  However, even though I haven’t seen an outrageous amount, they apparently have been laying lots of eggs.  Those eggs and now nice sized Caterpillars.

I know other insects don’t view these Caterpillars as very scary looking, but if I was a bird or other animal, this would be the last thing I would try and eat.

Gulf Fritillary Munching On Passion Vine

Gulf Fritillary Crawling Over Passion Vine

As I went around the backyard checking for other Butterfly Caterpillars, I noticed something hanging off of our large Butterfly enclosure.

This particular Butterfly Enclosure is on a completely different side of the yard compared to where the Passion Vine is located.  This little thing traveled quite a long way.

Gulf Fritillary Hanging J

Then I see an example of just why there are so many Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars.

Gulf Fritillary Laying Egg On Passion Vine

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?

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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?

Guess this wasp won’t become dinner tonight.

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.

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.

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