Monthly Archives: August 2023

Eight!

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday was a pretty spectacular day for the orange barred sulphur butterflies. We had eight emerge in our butterfly house. These butterflies have such a magnificent hue and are truly rays of sunshine as they flutter about the garden.

This butterfly, I have read is the largest southeastern sulphur with a wingspan from 2 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches.

Like many other species, the females are larger than the male butterflies. The males are bright yellow and the females hue changes with the season. They have a narrow dark border and are creamy white in the summer and yellow in the winter.

When they have their wings closed, the male has small dark spots on its bright yellow wings, while the female is orange yellow with dark molting during the summer, and more heavily marked during the winter months.

The final one

Posted on by
Reply

Our last white peacock butterfly emerged a few days ago, taking our final count to six that we were able to raise from caterpillars we brought home from Butterfly Estates. I now have four plants for them to lay eggs on in the garden, so hopefully they will return and keep their population going. It’s been a few days since I have seen them return.

The white peacock butterfly is on a white lantana, firebush, blue porterweed bush, red penta, pink zinnia, cone flower and scorpion tail. These are all amazing nectar plants to have in the garden.

Orange barred sulphur

Posted on by
Reply

My ray of sunshine is a constant visitor of our garden lately. She has been busy laying tons of eggs on my Bahama cassia tree, which is already covered in caterpillars of every instar. We recently brought in seven caterpillars that were on their final instar into our butterfly house. Today all of them have created their amazing chrysalis.

Earlier this week we had an orange barred sulphur emerge in our butterfly house, which was eager to fly free.. Their beauty is striking, especially when the sun hits them just right.

The penta

Posted on by
Reply

The gulf fritillary is such an amazing butterfly to watch in action, especially as they do not scare easily when you get close. The best part is if you stay still they flutter right past you, almost touching you, as they gracefully land on the nectar of choice.

The caterpillars are of abundance on the ever growing maypop passionvine. The butterflies are busy laying eggs on the vine, and for some reason on the wire that the maypop vine threw, as well as a trellis.

Today they went from the red pentas, which are among the top two nectar plants this butterfly visits in my garden, to laying eggs.

The gulf fritillary’s life span is anywhere from 14 to 27 days.

Magical

Posted on by
Reply

Seriosuly, does it get better than this? A monarch caterpillar conversing with a monarch butterfly on a giant milkweed. Nature is the best, butterfly gardens even better.

This morning, we had two monarch butterflies emerge and released into the front garden. Both of them were female, and both fluttered to a different destination among the plants to rest a little longer. One a few times.