Beth's Patch ~ Butterflies

I was surprised to see the long-tailed skipper again today though it's not the same one as Monday as shown in my pictures. I was also surprised to see it nectaring on the canna. Also seen by Karen Thompson as she used her last 2 monarch tags in the yard. It was a double digit butterfly day with 10 species here plus black swallowtail, cloudless sulphur, monarch, and american lady caterpillars in the yard

American lady butterfly

American lady butterfly

Common Buckeye Butterfly

American lady butterfly (lt) & Common Buckeye Butterfly (rt)

Fiery Skipper

Monarch Butterfly

Long-tailed Skipper

Ocola Skipper

 

Beth's Patch ~ Black Swallowtail Butterfly

 It's amazing how much wing a butterfly can lose and still fly and do their job. This Black Swallowtail female was laying eggs on the Rue. You can see the other egg she laid on the leaf above. She was definitely impaired in her flying.

Beth's Patch ~ Gardens

  A few pictures taken recently in the gardens.

Coral honeysuckle on side yard trellis in Mid-May

The snapdragons have been beautiful this year.  They overwintered from last summer.

This Black Swallowtail overwintered in the yard as a chrysalis and eclosed on 5/23.

Snapdragon close-up.

This year i bought some Dahlias to plant in the gardens

Another overwintering chrysalis in the yard was a spicebush swallowtail that eclosed on 5/25.

Found a Monarch caterpillar on Swamp milkweed on 6/1.  (the marks on the leaves are scars from me pulling the stems into a round support)

Finding the first of the year Spicebush swallowtail eggs on 6/8.

A close-up of a Spicebush Swallowtail egg on 6/8.

Beth's Patch ~ Mating Black Swallowtails

Hanky Panky on 8/8/20

And again another couple on 8/9/20.  Going to be babies soon.

My Yard ~ Black Swallowtail Butterflies

Male Swallowtail butterfly in the garden

Female Swallowtail butterfly in the garden but still laying eggs on the parsley and rue

Lots of Black Swallowtail caterpillars chowing down

And they ate it all and had to be relocated to another plant

And more BS cats chowing down.  the gardens are filled with them.

Getting ready to pupate

In the gardens

And 24 hrs later it's a chrysalis! 
Will it eclose this season or will it overwinter? There's no way to tell yet.

MY Yard ~ Dragonfly takes a Butterfly

Common Green Darner Dragonfly takes down a Black Swallowtail Butterfly.  But, hey, everyone has to eat!

My Yard ~ Black Swallowtail Butterfly

It's been a great spring. I had about 80 over-wintering Black Swallowtails in chrysalis this past winter. I have 24 left to go. All the rest were successfully eclosed as a black swallowtail butterfly except for one which was a wasp. Two eclosed this AM. Here's one of them on Lantana where I put it to finish drying his wings. I also have new eggs on my parsly for a new crop.

My Yard ~ Mating Black Swallowtails

Look what was happening in my garden today. I wonder if these were 2 of the 3 Black Swallowtails I released today that overwintered with us.

Another loop around ~ Savannah NWR, SC

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly

Today I decided to also check the main headquarters of the NWR as they often have nice displays that are set up for you to learn about nature.  I didn't see one at this headquarters but did walk a trail and sat by there feeders a while .  I also checked out some impoundments for ducks as they suggested.  I ended with 37 species of birds and 4 butterfly species.  This is a refuge I would visit again in the future.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Blue-winged Teal (Drake left & Hen right)

Savannah Sparrow feeding

Northern Mockingbird

American Coot

Villas, NJ ~ Cox Hall Creek WMA ~ Butterflies Walk

Common Buckeye Butterfly - Rosa Form

Ocola Skipper

Pearl Crescent Butterfly

Red-banded Hairstreak

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

My yard ~ More Butterflies & a Hummingbird

Ruby-throated Hummingbird still hanging around

Black Swallowtail

American Lady Butterfly

Horace's Duskywing

My Yard ~ Overwintering Black Swallowtail Butterflies

We had 15 overwintering Black Swallowtail chrysalis in my yard.  We have carefully kept an eye on them to see if the will enclose.  So far we have had 12 enclose with 3 more to go.  One of the 12 I fund on the ground with crumpled wings that apparently never got pumped up correctly.  Here is one of them on catmint.

Florida butterflies

Here are just some of the many butterflies we saw while on our trip.  In addition I saw a new life butterfly Hackberry Butterfly, a single Monarch, Long-tailed Skipper,Southern Dogface and others I couldn't ID.

Zebra Longwing Butterfly

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

Common Buckeye Butterfly

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Viceroy Butterfly

Ceraunus Blue

Great Southern White