Gulf Fritillary activity

Gulf Fritillary laying eggs.

perfect shot of momma at work

Two Gulf Fritillary eggs beside each other

caterpillar in its J.

Our first Fritillary chrysalis.

Captions above are thanks to Isabel.  We had a lot of activity in the garden this weekend.  Our Purple Passion flower has done exactly what we wanted, bring us Fritillary butterflies.  I didn't think it would happen so quickly, but they are regular visitors now and our vine is loaded with caterpillars.  I had to do some population management this weekend.  I didn't enjoy it, but we only have one plant.

We love to watch the fritillary.  It is a beautiful and friendly butterfly and is not bothered by our presence.  As you can see from the pictures above, she puts on quite a show as she deposits her eggs. Look closely at the picture of the chrysalis and you will see Isa's face through the vine.

Chrysalis Defects

Well, I am sorry to report that we have our first chrysalis defect issues.  The first picture is a chrysalis that formed while we were away and there were other caterpillars in the enclosure at the time.  My thought is that there was some interference/curiosity from another caterpillar but I cannot prove that.  I did do some research on www.monarchwatch.org and one forum post showed the same kind of photo and she also had other caterpillars in the enclosure.  She said her butterflies hatched without issue so I am going to leave the first one alone.  I also researched on this website http://www.butterflyfunfacts.com and she had some great pictures of damaged chrysalides, how they hatched and noted defects found, very informative.  So, I am going to let it be and then note any defects I see.

The second one formed it's chrysalis while we were away and again there were other caterpillars in the enclosure, but this one almost looks like some other issue was to blame.  I am going to remove this one from the cage and throw it away, we don't need any bad juju. 

Disney Butterflies

Queen Butterfly

Great Southern White Butterfly

Common Buckeye Butterfly

Julia Butterfly

butterfly topiary

Hi Everybody!  We were at Epcot, Disney World today and we were lucky enough to see the HGTV International Flower and Garden Festival https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/epcot/epcot-international-flower-and-garden-festival/ on the last day.  As part of the festival they have a butterfly tent and these are the pictures that we took.  The butterflies were beautiful and the topiaries that were created for the event were awesome.

If you like gardening and butterflies, we would recommend going to Epcot during this event.

Scarlet Milkweed Devoured

These stems used to be one of my scarlet milkweed plants.  Seeing the plants like this makes me nervous that we won't be able to feed all the caterpillars.  I hate to say it, but I think we are going to have to let mother nature take it's course since I don't have enough plants for all the babies. 

We put down more seeds in hopes that this will help accommodate the extra activity.   Isabel and I will also be planting some seeds in her friends gardens so the Monarchs can visit them too.Our activity in the garden has increased a lot since the end of April.  Every time I see a butterfly in the garden I am happy and sad all at once. 

My plants need time to recover!

Purple Passion Flower

We added this beauty to our garden this weekend.  Happy Mother's Day to me!  This plant is beautiful and it has a wonderful fragrance.

This plant should attract  Gulf Fritillary, Zebra Longwing, Crimson-patch longwing, Red-banded hairstreak, Julia butterfly, Mexican butterfly and is also a nectar plant.

We would love to have our state butterfly in the garden and the fritillary is beautiful.

Butterfly Stats

When Isabel and I first started this adventure we had a feeling that most of our butterflies were females, but we had not been keeping track.  Curious about our ratio of females to males we went back and looked at our pictures to see who was in the lead and it turns out that we were right; females are more common.  We have released a total of 14 Monarchs ( 5 males and 9 females).

We currently have 8 or 9 chrysalides waiting to hatch.  This past couple of weeks we have had more butterflies than ever, must be the season.  This picture gives you a good idea of how busy we have are.  If you look carefully you can see we have butterflies, chrysalides and caterpillars in this shot.  We have to give a shout out to Daddy who bought us this new home for the caterpillars; he likes to watch them too.  Their new home keeps them all in one place and contained until they are ready for release.  Everyone likes to walk by or sit in front of it and watch the caterpillars do their thing.

GULF FRITILLARY SPOTTED

I found this beautiful GULF FRITILLARY on my lantana plant.  I think it is a male. Just that morning I was second guessing my purchase of the plant because I had not seen any other butterflies and also because after I planted it I discovered it is considered an invasive.  It is incredibly rewarding to see that our little garden is slowly attracting other butterflies.