Wordless Wednesday: Tawny Emperor, 09/24/13

Wordless Wednesday: Giant Swallowtail, 08/13/13

Butterfly-less

This morning I saw a Red Admiral and a Giant Swallowtail in my backyard. Yesterday I saw a Monarch and a Gray Hairstreak and the day before, I saw a Gulf Fritillary, but, all in all, I'm seeing surprisingly few butterflies these days.

It's surprising because earlier in the year, in late winter and early spring, my yard was absolutely teeming with the colorful fliers. Swallowtails of all kinds, but especially Tigers, were daily visitors and not just solitary ones. It was not at all unusual to see several Tiger Swallowtails or Pipevine Swallowtails or Gulf Fritillaries or even Monarchs during a day's time. No more.

This is a bit unusual because most years around this time is when the butterfly population really begins to explode. It is consistently warm - no, make that hot! - every day now and these critters normally thrive in warm and hot weather. Generally speaking, from now through the end of autumn, we have a constantly changing kaleidoscope of butterfly visitors. So far, that just hasn't been the case this year.

This spring has been different for us because it has been exceptionally cool. I just heard that it has been the 30th coolest spring on record for the area. Moreover, up until recently, we had been getting regular rains. It has, in short, been a very pleasant spring for humans and plants, but maybe that wasn't so good for the butterflies. Perhaps it inhibited their ability to successfully reproduce and that's why we are not seeing as many as usual just now. That's my theory anyway.

I expect this dearth of butterflies will not last much longer. There are plenty of flowers and plenty of host plants in the garden to entice them and the weather now is mostly hot and dry. Time will remedy my butterfly-lessness.

  Black Swallowtail on lantana earlier this spring.

The dying Monarch

Lately, the news for the Monarch butterfly has been all bad. It seems that every week we have a new story detailing the depressing news of the beautiful butterfly's decline. Illegal logging, rampant ecotourism, and unusually harsh winters have damaged the butterfly's winter sanctuary in Mexico. Mid-America's big factory farms' reliance on the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides have killed butterflies and their caterpillars and have destroyed the stands of milkweed which caterpillars need to feed on in order to grow and transform into butterflies. And looming over all of this are the effects of global climate change which is reeking havoc with weather patterns, causing extended droughts and, paradoxically, historic floods, and contributing to raging wildfires which damage the butterfly's food source and kill butterflies. It is estimated that today's population of the butterflies is approximately one-fifteenth of what it was in 1997.

This marks the third straight year of decline for this migrant butterfly which is a treasure of all three nations of North America. Indeed, its population is at the lowest levels ever reliably measured. There seems a very real possibility that the Monarch butterfly could become extinct. At the very least, its population will be a mere shadow of what it once was. As recently as 1994, wintering butterflies in the Mexican mountains covered 22 acres. By 2003, the area covered was down to 12 acres. During this past winter, it was only 2.9 acres. That is just shocking.

The best known fact about the Monarch is its migratory habit. It crosses the continent twice a year. It takes four generations of the butterfly to travel from Mexico to Canada. In order to make that long trek, it must have milkweed to nourish caterpillars into the next generation. You can easily see what the destruction of all those stands of milkweed across middle America has done to the prospects for the successful completion of the migration.

Of course, gardeners across the country have been trying to fill the void by planting more milkweed in their gardens. I have about twenty plants of the stuff and I just added three large plants this past week, because my old plants died back in the winter and were just emerging from their nap. Their leaves were not big enough to nourish many caterpillars. This is probably the most important thing that we, as gardeners, can do to help the butterfly. That and refusing to use chemical pesticides and herbicides in the garden. These can be death not only to butterflies but to so many useful and beautiful critters that make our gardens their habitat.

Many wildlife conservation groups have also made the Monarch's survival a priority. The World Wildlife Fund, for just one example, has sponsored the census of the butterfly and is looking for ways to aid it and to mitigate the forces aligned against its survival.  The organization Journey North, which tracks many migrating species including hummingbirds and other birds as well as butterflies, has invaluable information on its website regarding the Monarch's life cycle and what it needs to survive. They also encourage citizen scientists to report Monarch sightings to that website so that the migration can be tracked. (I've made my reports and I encourage you to do the same.)

Everyone loves the Monarch. No one wants to see it perish. So, why is it in such trouble? It seems to be trouble that is altogether of human origin, even the changing climate. Can we summon the will to change our practices in order to give the butterfly a fighting chance? If we can, we may save more than a butterfly.

A Monarch egg on milkweed leaf. You can see the tiny embryo inside. 

 Monarch caterpillars on milkweed, their only source of food.

  I don't have grandchildren, but if I ever should, I would hope they would still be able to see this sight.

Silent Sunday: Black Swallowtail on purple lantana

Wordless Wednesday: Dogface Sulphur on oxalis

Silent Sunday: American Painted Lady on strawberries

Well-named butterfly

An American Snout butterfly perched on the hook that holds one of my hummingbird feeders this week. Can you guess how it got its name?

These butterflies have such a distinctive profile that they can hardly be confused with any other species. They are one of the species that can stage massive, though sporadic, migrations. They are nowhere near as predictable as Monarchs, for example.

I haven't witnessed any large migrations of these interesting insects, but I have noticed a presence of them in my garden throughout the winter, unlike in previous years when they've only been occasional visitors. This year, hardly a week has gone by without my seeing at least one of them here. They are said to be most numerous in the area from April to November, but, in my yard, I've seen them mostly in winter. They are always welcome visitors.

Wordless Wednesday: Gulf Fritillary

This week in the garden - #48

Is winter over? Has spring arrived early this year? It certainly seemed like it this week as daytime temperatures headed toward 80 degrees.

Looking around the yard, it was clear that something was going on. The bluebirds and the wrens were busy checking out possible nesting sites. As I went about my garden tasks, I kept encountering green anoles who were out sunning themselves. Last night, when I turned on the back porch light, I looked up to see a couple of Mediterranean  geckos perched on the ceiling waiting for some unwary insect to come close enough to grab. Also, that harbinger of spring for our more northern friends, the American Robin, showed up in the yard this week.

Some years I have robins in my yard all winter long, occasionally in very large numbers, but I hadn't actually seen or heard any in the yard this winter until this week. The last ones I had seen here were in late summer/early autumn. Now, suddenly, they seem to be everywhere.

And then there are the butterflies. I stopped seeing Monarchs and Queens several weeks ago, but this week they've joined my winter butterflies, the Sulphurs, the Painted Ladies, the American Snouts, and the Red Admirals, in a virtual parade of butterfly beauty.

Of course, if it is January, it's time for the Carolina jessamine to start blooming.

 And there it is - right on cue. In another week or ten days, this vine will be full of these yellow blossoms.

The cold weather that we had last week encouraged the purple oxalis to bring out its pretty little pink blooms.

This oxalis generally continues to bloom for me well into spring when the hot weather causes it to take a rest.

Cleanup of the winter garden continued this week at a slow pace. I developed a respiratory infection with fever. Cold? Flu? Who knows - it just makes one feel rotten. So I had to take it easy, but I did manage to get a few things done. My best work of the week was adding some pansies and violas for a little winter color. 

Few things can perk up the spirits like the happy little faces of violas and pansies.

Wordless Wednesday: Winter butterfly - Red Admiral

Christmas Eve gift

These are some gifts that Mother Nature gave me in my garden this afternoon, the day before Christmas.

The very first Queen butterfly I had seen in my garden this season!

A somewhat bedraggled male Monarch.

Fiery Skipper.

Cloudless Sulphur.

Gulf Fritillary.

Painted Lady.

Tropical Checkered Skipper.

American Snout.

All of these butterflies, except for the American Snout, were seen nectaring on the purple trailing lantana, which, although nipped by frost, still has many tiny blooms. It was alive with these butterflies and many, many more today - Nature's precious winter gifts to this grateful gardener.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: November butterflies

American Painted Lady

Dorantes Skipper

Gulf Fritillary

Pipevine Swallowtail - dorsal view

Pipevine Swallowtail - ventral view

Clouded Sulphur

Tropical Checkered Skipper

Variegated Fritillary

Wordless Wednesday: Desert butterflies - Sleepy Orange