I read that red dragonflies can be very hard to identify. As far as I can tell…this might be a male Needham’s Skimmer.
It looked much more red in real life. I checked www.BugGuide.net and there was a picture of the Needham’s Skimmer and they looked the same to me.
It claimed this stick by the birdbath as it’s own.
Our milkweed bed was pretty overgrown with weeds when we got home from our trip to NY,VT and TN. 2 months away during the spring, in Florida, is a long time.
Once I got all the weeds pulled, I looked the plants over for caterpillars. I found 22. All have become butterflies but 2. They should emerge in a day or two.
These are 2 of the ones I’ve released.
I set them on the Buddleia so they will know where it is the next day when they are hungry. I know they will find it by themselves, but I try to give them an easy start.
Their colors are so sharp and beautiful when they first emerge. This female is eating ….she must be one from yesterday’s release.
I don’t have a lot of blooming plants in my yard right now, but I have butterflies coming and going. The Bottlebrush plants continually put out blooms and the Buddleia plants. There are also a few wild Lantana. The Zebra Longwings hang out on those.
Two Spicebush Butterflies stopped today.
I followed them all over until this one finally settled down to sun itself.
The iridescent blue on the wings was much better than the photo shows it.
Their host plants can be Sweetbay Magnolia, Sassafras, and Tulip Tree. There are Magnolias in the area, perhaps they are Sweetbay.
I don’t see a lot of the Spicebush Swallowtails in the yard, but they do show up once in awhile. Beautiful contrast of blue and black.
The Viceroy Butterfly visits once in awhile. It is easy to mistake it for a Monarch at a quick glance. The Monarch doesn’t have that line across it’s hind wings.
Their color is much richer than the Monarch’s.
This one didn’t mind posing…but wouldn’t spread it’s wings for very long.
I believe their host plant is a Willow and I don’t have any in my yard, so they don’t come in very often. I guess it was after my Buddleia plant.
Pretty little fellow…guess I’ll have to plant some Willow to keep them coming.
This one is a beauty! It is also a very large butterfly. Wingspan of about 5”.
It flutters and glides so gently. There is no rapid fluttering of the wings. At rest or feeding the wings are completely open. This is the underside. The blue is visible from this side…not the top.
Most of the other swallowtails have such rapidly beating wings it is hard to catch their beauty.
I love the soft fuzzy body.
It walked all over this flower with it’s wings spread. Only occasionally closing them.
With the sun on the opposite side of the plant, you can see the shadow thru the wings. It’s amazing how fragile they are….yet able to carry them for great distances.
Checking me out…but never stopped eating.
I believe this one is a male. The female has the blue on the back of the lower wings instead or as well as, the underside.
I saw this rather large black butterfly in the back yard. I believe it is the black form of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
We are having waves of light rain coming in from Tropical Storm Beryl, and I was surprised to see this butterfly.
It caught my eye because it was so big. The yellow Tiger Swallowtails have a wingspan of about 5” and this one was about that size.
It has started raining again…I’ll have to check later when the band of rain clouds pass.
What a nice “welcome home”.
I save Babe’s (our Love bird) seed and give it to the squirrels at home…but while on a trip to NY I spotted this little Chipmunk in the backyard, behind a friend’s garage. We have our camper parked there and each morning I watched him scurry around.
I put a nice heap of seed on a woodpile and watched it work. At first, I thought it was looking for a specific seed…nope…it was filling up it’s pouches, but the action reminded me of a vacuum cleaner….sweeping back and forth over them……therefore….”Hoover”.
You can see the difference in his pouches….
Looks like a bad case of the mumps.
In the pictures above, he is checking to see if the way is clear for him to head to the storage area. He scooted thru the garden and under a cinder block.
Notice how sleek his cheeks look now.
It made several more trips until the pile of seeds was gone.
According to Wikipedia.com they are omnivorous. They will eat grain, nuts, fruits & berries. Sometimes even birds eggs and small baby mice. Frogs, worms and fungi can also be part of it’s diet.
My Grandmother had several over the years that would come up and take peanuts from her hand.
This one would be easy to tame. The second day I was able stand within 3’ of the seed and it would come up and start filling it’s pouches. I spoke to it each time as I walked to the area, and while I was there so as not to scare it away. By the end of the week it was coming within minutes of hearing my voice.
The only info I could find on Chipmunks in Florida mentioned the panhandle. We’ve never seen any in our area in Central Florida. We live in a hammock and most of the year it is pretty wet….so I will just have to enjoy them here in the North.
