A welcome garden visitor

A most welcome spring visitor came fluttering into my garden today. It was a migrating female Monarch butterfly and she was on a mission.

She went straight to my butterfly weed and proceeded to deposit her eggs on the leaves. Here you can see her curved thorax as she bends it to touch her ovipositer to the leaf, attaching an egg there.

I think she visited every single butterfly weed plant I have in the garden and, as best I could discern, she was leaving eggs on all of them.

She often hung upside down to deposit her eggs on the underside of a leaf.

This lady appeared to be in good shape. Her wings were completely intact, not tattered and torn as is often the case with these migrants.

My visitor continued her tour through my butterfly weed for perhaps the better part of an hour. She was not to be distracted by any of the nearby flowers. She was only interested in green leaves. With any luck at all, perhaps those green leaves will soon have some tiny caterpillars crawling on them. I just hope they fare better than last year's crop of Monarch caterpillars.

Last year, I had a plague of wasps that hunted the caterpillars in my garden all spring and summer. I don't think a single Monarch caterpillar survived to become a butterfly. I haven't seen any wasps around so far this spring so I'm hoping this generation might have a window of opportunity to develop and mature before the predators find them. I've seen very few of the migrating butterflies in my garden this spring. I would love to see the population increase here with the help of my plants.

A first for the season

The change in the weather this week has brought a flurry of migrants to my garden.  Most of them have had feathers like this female Rufous Hummingbird, a first for my yard who has brought quite a lot of excitement for one backyard birder.

Female Rufous Hummingbird at 'Texas Star' hibiscus.

But finally today, I had my first migrant of the season of quite another kind.  At about the middle of the day, the very first Monarch butterfly of the fall migration came to rest on a garlic chive blossom in my backyard.  He sat there sipping for some time as I watched.  Then I headed into the house to get the camera to try to record the event.  Of course, by the time I got back outside, he had moved on, but I was finally able to chase him down.

  You can tell he's a male by the two black spots in the middle of his hindwings.

Since he's a male, there won't be any eggs left behind from this visitor, but I'm hoping he is the harbinger of more of the brightly-colored fliers to come.  Soon, perhaps, there will be a female who will be happy for all the milkweed that is growing rampantly in my garden.  And I will be happy to welcome her and any eggs she chooses to leave with me.  

Meantime, today's visitor did not tarry long.  Soon, I saw him winging south once again, determined to make his way to the mountains of Mexico.  Fair weather and safe travel to him and all the millions of his brothers and sisters to come.