Gulf Fritillary Butterfly - Host plant Passion Flower Vine

Monarch Mating Florida Pan Handle area Thanksgiving week 2011

The male looked pretty tattered, but the female looked fairly new. The mating process took quite a while. I probably watched for 15 minutes before I moved on to see something else. 

Butterflies : Thanksgiving Week in South Walton Beach, Florida (pan handle)

We had the opportunity to see Monarchs in every part of their life cycle at the butterfly garden in Watercolor, Florida. I had never seen so many Monarchs in one place and seeing every aspect of their life cycle going on in one place was a real treat! Also there in far more numbers were Gulf Fritillary butterflies. I have been going to Florida for Thanksgiving week for about 16 years now and I had never seen so many Gulf Fritillary butterflies. They were extremely active. We saw eggs, cats, chrysalis and their mating rituals as well. 

Our First Frost of Fall was on 11-11-11.

The butterfly garden took its first hit from the cold weather on 11-11-11. It will have to look bad all winter. I can't cut back the Lantana or it will allow the cold to enter through the stalk and it may not come back. Also, there may be black swallowtails in chrysalis on the plant stems and they will not emerge until the spring. I will wait until spring so they will have plenty of time to emerge before I cut anything back. I am already looking forward to next spring, butterfly season. =) We have a Black Swallowtail chrysalis on the ceiling of our front porch and we have the pupa stage of a praying mantis stuck to one of our doors. They will sleep peacefully until spring and we will see them once again. For now we have ladybugs trying to come into the houses to hibernate for the winter. Be kind, let them stay..provide them with some moisture and next spring they will help take care of that aphid problem you may have. Stay warm! I'll be back in the spring. I will have two to three new raised beds for flowers and host plants.

The Butterfly Garden and some recent visitors Late August 2011

Monarch Eggs!!

Yesterday morning I watched a Monarch lay eggs all over the milkweed in my butterfly garden. She's right on time for my area. I have milkweed growing in a pot on my front porch. They have not found that yet and it is just as well since that is my back up stash in case I don't have enough milkweed. I have had a hard time with this "weed". It is quite picky, dropping leaves all summer. Does anyone have experience with it. I'm referring to Tropical Milkweed. It does not seem to want to be too wet or too dry. The lower leaves turn yellow and drop. I have added fertilizer when this has happened and it seemed to help. Maybe they need iron when this happens? No matter how I trim the tops, to get them to fill out, they are determined to be leggy.



Monarch Egg on Tropical Milkweed

Monarch laying eggs on a lone & pitiful looking Milkweed plant in a pot. Aug 29, 2011

Hundreds of Black Swallowtails this summer....

We counted and watched at least 130 Black Swallowtails go through the early stages of their life cycles until we just could not keep up anymore. We've had nine parsley plants, 2 dill and several carrots that we have let grow all summer just for the leaves. Each plant has been decimated and regrown a couple of times this summer. It's been great and the Butterfly Garden has been a great success. I have no clue how many we have now, but we have at least 50 cats eating on the different plants. If you plant plants from the wild carrot family, the Black Swallowtails will come. 

Butterflies Emerging from Chrysalis Daily

Today we had 10 Black Swallowtail butterflies emerge and take flight. We've had a total of 28 so far. 20 male, 7 female & one unknown. (It left before we could see it.) Also, we had a visitor to the butterfly garden just to feed on the flowers, a black phase female Eastern Yellow Tiger Swallowtail. We have had several of the yellow this week.

The First of the 130+ Black Swallowtails Emerged

8-1-11 Two males have emerged this morning. I don't think I will be able to keep a count. They are everywhere and not all,  actually most are not in any type of enclosure.

Grown Black Swallowtail Caterpillar eating a Parsley leaf.

Black Swallowtails......

We have so many Black Swallowtails. I counted over 130 eggs/caterpillars combined. I stopped counting because I have been too busy just trying to keep up with them, making sure they have food and shelter. Quite a few of them have gone into chrysalis. I hope to post pictures and videos of the process as soon as I have the time. I'm looking forward to release time, what fun!

Monarch

They eat like crazy and poop like crazy! The poop is called frass and you can see it all around. It is important to keep their area clean. We cleaned several times a day. We usually have them on a plant, but they ate it and these were extra leaves we got from a friend. 

This cat just molted and you can see the old skin on the right. 

The cat secures itself with its silk while it molts. You can see the silk on the glass.

The cat is eating its molted skin. There is nothing to go to waste. They also eat their egg shell first thing after they hatch. 

They secure themselves with silk and hang upside down as they prepare for chrysalis. A transformation is going on under their skin.

They literally shed their skin and expose the shell that was being formed underneath the skin. The next pictures show the shell pushing the skin up from the bottom to the top. They will then twist around to make the skin fall away from the chrysalis. 

The skin at the top must fall away, or rather be pushed as the cat goes into a twisting motion.

Twisting

Still twisting and the skin does fall away. See the new chrysalis in the back of the picture.

So beautiful, like a jewel.

Female

Male -dots on inner wings

Female - no dots

Eastern Yellow Tiger Swallowtail

The host plant we feed is the leaf of the Poplar tree, a pioneering tree in our area. 

Male

Male

Preparing to form chrysalis

More pictures to come of chrysalis and butterfly...whenever I manage to find them on my computer. ;-p