The Butterfly House

Jim took our old “bird cage” apart…all the wire was removed….the points ground down and then I ground most of the old paint off.  We were working on a “hurry up” schedule…the large caterpillar had started traveling… looking for a place to make his chrysalis.   It’s not fancy…but will do for now.

We screened it all in…put 2 flat slats in the top and one set at an angle for it to use to get to the top. We didn’t have it in the cage more than 5 minutes and it was headed up…right now its on one of the slats. Hope it doesn’t start building tonight.

 

 

I couldn’t believe he found his way to the top so fast…

This is the one that was almost an inch a day ago…It’ll be the next one up.

There are 5 smaller one is this plant.

 

The dark egg hatched yesterday….the lighter one hatched today….another should hatch tomorrow and the last 4 in a day or two.

A week or so ago I couldn’t spot an egg…now I can tell when they are getting close to hatching. They are so small when they first come out it’s almost impossible to spot them.

My Monarch “nursery”

I have so many tiny caterpillars I decided to go to the local plant nursery and buy a few potted milkweed plants.  I ended up with 4.

I will keep the plants in the screen room until the caterpillars  grow up. Jim is going  to build me a portable butterfly house. He’s remodeling a large birdcage that my Mom had built several years ago. He’ll take out the 1/4 “ wire and replace it with window screen. I will have a wooden perch or branch in the top for them to build their chrysalis on. Once they become beautiful butterflies, I will release them.

Here are a few of the little ones. The two on the L are about 1/4 of an inch….you have to look very closely to see the one that just hatched.

 

When I was picking out my plants….I spotted this good sized caterpillar. I know they sell them at the nursery ( $8 each), so I told them there was a large one on my plant and asked if they wanted it….they told me I could have it.  Great…it should be ready to build a chrysalis fairly soon.

I got my plants home…took the little caterpillars that I hatched and put them on the plants…several hours later I was checking on them to see how they were doing….and guess what!!!  I saw 2 more caterpillars….one is about 3/4 of an inch and the other almost an inch.  This is the larger and the smaller of the 3 that came with the plants.

 

I noticed the tiny hatchlings are  more active on the living plant than they were on the cut leaves. I  read  there is a better survival rate that way, and that helped me make the decision to buy more plants. It makes sense that the leaves would lose some of their food value after being cut and wilting. Perhaps that is why.

My plants outside have at least 4 tiny caterpillars and a few more eggs. I think I will let them hatch and grow naturally and see how many survive.

I should have an abundance of Monarch Butterflies before long.

Monarch Butterflies and Caterpillars

My friend, Debbie, gave me two Tropical Milkweed plants a few weeks ago. They have been growing nicely. I have been feeding and watering my “weeds”. The Black Swallowtails, Zebra Longwings, Tiger Swallowtails and Yellow butterflies love them……you can bet I’ll have a big patch of weeds next year.

I wondered how a Monarch would find these plants way back here in the woods. I never see them other than at Debbie’s and she is a couple of miles down the road.  Last week I was thrilled……a Monarch flew into the yard…it fluttered around the plants but didn’t spend much time on the flowers.  It came back a few days later and I took a couple videos. When I downloaded them I realized she was laying eggs.

I took these snapshots out of the video so they are not the best photos.

After I saw this in the video I went out and checked the plant leaf…sure enough…an egg. I did some research and read where ants and other insects  eat butterfly eggs. I found another article on how to keep them…so I set up a container and clipped the leaf…and several others. Once I knew what I was looking for I found several eggs.

There are 3 below, they are the small white spots. Just before they hatch the egg looks black. I guess it’s the little black face chewing it’s way out.

The next day I found this small caterpillar. It  must have just hatched…. It is eating it’s shell….I read that is their first meal. It is about 1/32 of an inch long.  tiny..tiny…tiny..

So I have moved my caterpillar nursery to a plastic bin for easier handling. I have to put fresh leaves in each day. Today I cut the section the caterpillar was sitting on off the wilted leaf and dropped it onto a fresh leaf. Look closely…you can see at least 3 caterpillars….there are over a dozen in the pile and I have several eggs yet to hatch.  I keep the leaves with the eggs in separate containers …evidently caterpillars might eat the eggs too.

Here’s a close-up of the one on the L side of the leaves. You can see the start of its stripes.

Here’s the video where I spotted the Monarch laying her eggs.

With all these caterpillars you’d think I’d get lucky enough to see them make their Chrysalis and capture them emerging as butterflies.

Jim’s next project will be a small butterfly house for my screen room.  Then I can have several potted Milkweed plants under netting and can put my caterpillars on living plants where they can eat all they want….and have a safe place to build their Chrysalis.

This is so interesting. I loved caterpillars when I was a kid……now I remember why.

Ragged Beauty (Black Swallowtail)

Life isn’t perfect and we can’t all be perfect.  I saw this butterfly and ran out to take it’s picture.  When I got closer I realized much of its wings are missing. But….it really didn’t matter…I still thought it beautiful.

 

 

On my way back inside I couldn’t resist snapping a shot of this little fellow. He comes to the backyard with 4 of his friends each morning for a few kernels of corn. My little dog, Raisin, loves to watch them. They are great “puppy” sitters. She won’t move from her cushion until they leave…and watches them intently.

Antlion (Doodlebug)

I was opening the door to the shed and this flew from the door to the side of the building.

It blends in so well, I’m not surprised I haven't noticed them before.

I didn’t realize until it landed on the flag….but the wings are transparent like a dragonfly’s. When in flight it looks like the “helicopters” that we see in the evening.

I’ve been through some bug websites but didn’t find out what it was…so ..if you know…please let me know.

Cuckoo Wasp?

I spotted this beautifully colored little flying insect.....

The closest thing I could find is a Cuckoo Wasp.....Am I right?

It was trying to get inside of these little wind chimes, but I think Mud Dabbers might have gotten there first.

Monarch Butterfly

My friend, Debbie, has a nice patch of Milkweed and a couple of Monarchs that fly in an out.  She found one caterpillar and put it in a container….fed it fresh milkweed everyday…until it made it’s cocoon.

This is what it looked like yesterday…around 2pm.  If you look closely…you can see a faint outline of the wings.

This was taken early this morning. It has turned very dark and is getting a lot more transparent. You can see some of the color.

We had a great waffle breakfast at their house this morning and watch….and watched….and watched….

We all had other things to do ..so we brought the container home with us …..I wanted to get a video of it coming out….

we watched…..and watched….

I left the room for awhile and Jim watched….no change other than getting a bit clearer…..Jim left the room for a few minutes…..and you know what happened…before I got out there it had opened and was drying it’s wings. 

I took the container and rode my bike to Debbie’s and put it on one of their milkweed plants.

It sat there for about an hour …then we started seeing some spreading of wings every few minutes.

A few minutes later it climbed up to the flowers…perhaps grabbed a snack and then flew away. I hope it remains in the area and lays an egg and we can have better luck next time. 

We have an idea of what to watch for…but perhaps it saw us as predators and waited for us to leave.