It’s always fun to find where the caterpillars end up in the garden, as more times than not they are far from their host plant.
This gulf fritillary decided to make its chrysalis on my lantana plant yesterday. When I checked on it this afternoon it had created its chrysalis.
There are so many more caterpillars in different instars throughout the garden.
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.
One word comes to mind, “grateful.”
Grateful I began a butterfly garden a number of years ago. Grateful that I get to watch the incredible journey from an egg, to a stunning monarch butterfly. Grateful I get to photograph such amazing moments, such as this male enjoying some sweet almond bush nectar. Grateful that my daughter enjoys the gardens, and butterflies, as much as I do.
These last few days I have had so much fun watching the monarch butterflies eat. Today’s feast was sweet almond bush, lantana and pentas. My daughter was extremely excited to pick out pink and purple pentas today, while I was ecstatic to add another sweet almond bush to the nectar variety. The aroma of the sweet almond bush is incredible.
The amazement was how much they sip until they rest, or fly away. It definitely put a perspective of how much nectar a butterfly garden should have in addition to its host plants.
Here are a few from my photoshoot for today.
Tons of gulf fritillary butterflies are visiting the gardens today.
Here’s an assortment of the three visitors I was able to photograph . . . sipping on nectar (blue porterweed and lantana), resting and laying eggs.
It’s fascinating to watch them. One of them went from host plant to host plant laying eggs and then stopping at a nectar plant to take a sip before returning to lay more.
There was one that almost landed on my leg a few times, almost.
This monarch loved the lantana in our front butterfly garden. It is so fascinating to watch them uncoil their proboscis, move their head up and down as they sip the nectar. Here’s the photo shoot I had with this monarch sipping from our lantana.
