the butterflies have arrived July 24, 2008
Posted by Sandy in a small garden in maine, butterflies, photographs.Tags: a small garden in maine, butterflies
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I complained too early in the season about not seeing butterflies. Just in the last week, I am seeing them all over the place. The first shot is an american painted lady. This butterfly stayed around all the while I was deadheading flowers the other day. I see painted ladies more often out near the woods by the blueberries and raspberries.
This black swallowtail has been around the last two mornings. The first day I saw it, my camera was indoors. That doesn’t happen often, it usually is my my gardening carrier while I work. Most of the time, I see yellow tiger swallowtails, so this was a treat for me.
This silver-bordered fritillary was taken in the field right behind my garden. There is a large patch of spreading dogbane that seems to be a great attraction for bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. Another good place to photograph butterflies is around goldenrod. The field is full of that, so I expect to be out there with my camera a lot in the next few weeks.
Oh my, do you suppose that the early blooming of the goldenrod portends an early or long winter for us? I noticed in the spring that the maples had tons of seeds.
Do you think it is early? Maybe that is why summer seems so short this year.
We had a storm this morning, and looks like one is one the way again. I just got in from my walk in time, it has just started raining.
Were you in that lot who lost power this morning?
thanks for taking the time to photograph and identify these. The kids and I are learning to identify butterflies and these are a gorgeous help.
I enjoy it, Renee. Wish I had learned more when I was young.
Lovely. We get butterflies here but they seem to cruise through quickly. I suspect that when the backyard is finished, I’ll see more of them.
Maybe there is hope that they will arrive at my neck of the woods…the butterflies are few and far between this year and we have excellant conditions for them.
beautiful photos – are the American Painted Ladies different from the European Painted Ladies, do you know?
Enjoy your photos and haiku so much I just had to tell you my caterpillar story.
I live in Wisconsin and try to plant things in my garden that will attract butterflies. Mostly I get Monarch, Viceroy, Swallowtails and of course Sulphurs.
One day my husband came in and said, ” Now you have really done it. Come out and look at the pussywillow”. Our pussywillow was about 10′ tall at the time and just TOTALLY covered with the ugliest caterpillars— black with red spots, covered with these horny bristles. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these ugly caterpillars munching down the tree. I am not exaggerating. There were more caterpillars on this tree than if the whole tree had been covered with tent caterpillars. They were definitely ugly enough to look like they were something BAD. We were worried.
I took several caterpillars to one local nursery center, and then another nursery center and both “Specialists” prescribed poisons to spray the tree and kill them. Then I took them to the local Extension Office and he told me they were Morning Cloak Butterfly Larvae!
We watched the ugly bristly things eat the pussywillow for about a week, getting fatter and fatter- a good half of the tree was eaten! Then one day they just all started crawling away from the tree in a mass exodus. It was so interesting as the birds had a field day. For some reason the birds didn’t bother the larvae when then they were still on the tree, but once they started crawling on the grass, birds were swooping from every direction for a little larvae snack. It was kind of sad and we did scare away a few of the birds to help the caterpillars a bit.
Overall it was a great experience for our family and I always tell people to make sure that the insect or caterpillar that they are spraying is something bad before they try to kill it. And, I also purchased a new book with lots of pictures of butterfly larvae but so far nothing new have flown in!
Darleen, glad you figured it out. Did the tree live? My fennel always get covered with caterpillars. I finally learned that they were swallowtail butterflies, so now I leave them there.
Thanks for the story, and please stop back in again.
Dear Sandi,
I enjoyed seeing your butterflies so much this evening!
The Painted Ladies are very pretty butterflies.
I have not been able to visit very much this summer so tonight I spent some time with you catching up.
Thank you for wonderful pictures and poems.
Sherry
The pussywillow tree came back as strong as ever. I think it would be pretty hard to kill a pussywillow.
I have the same problem with my fennel, dill and parsley that I grow both for myself and for the butterflies. One has to look close when you need to harvest some for dinner!
Although the swallowtails are so elegent, I always enjoy Painted Ladies more… I’m glad your butterflies arrived. That means they’ll still be fluttering after ours are long gone. I’ve been seeing butterflies since late April or early May, I think. My butterfly bush is always busy. Waiting for Monarchs.
I never have much luck capturing butterflies with my camera, but love seeing what others can do. These are beautiful … thanks for sharing.
Hugs and blessings,
Beautiful pics, Sandy.
I have not seen a painted lady yet, but today I saw a black swallowtail and a monarch.