Today in my garden

Lovely photos, @ceci.

Peggy8b said:Lovely photos, @ceci.

Vivid & beautiful!

It is the Southern monarch (Danaus erippus).
I don't know exactly which is the difference between this monarch and the Northern monarch (Danaus plexippus) that you have in the Northern hemisphere.

Gee, I am hoping that this is true everybody. I just saw a little news blip come across my news feed on my cell phone yesterday. Scientists were very excited to report record numbers of Monarchs have come to their wintering grounds in Mexico!!
This was an item from NPR.
Apparently the numbers were so good that the article claimed that, "these numbers had not been observed in quite a few years!!!" Did anyone else see this news item?

Seems like this might bode well for the Spring Migration!!

BigBill said:Gee, I am hoping that this is true everybody. I just saw a little news blip come across my news feed on my cell phone yesterday. Scientists were very excited to report record numbers of Monarchs have come to their wintering grounds in Mexico!!
This was an item from NPR.
Apparently the numbers were so good that the article claimed that, "these numbers had not been observed in quite a few years!!!" Did anyone else see this news item?

Seems like this might bode well for the Spring Migration!!

Yeah, I only posted the link to the article yesterday. See?
https://garden.org/thread/repl...

Goodness I missed that.

BigBill said:Goodness I missed that.

Chalk it up to L tryptophan hangover from Thanksgiving day turkey.

Good news bears repeating. I certainly was happy to read it again!

Gosh, I sure hope it is a good sign. My butterfly season was not only poor, but late! Most of my activity was after mid August.
I can't recall a single frit last summer or any Red Admirals. Maybe I did see just one. I had a good skipper mix but disappointing.

My butterfly season this year was fairly pitiful but better than the year before which was close to nonexistent.

Good news indeed. I travel all over FL, mostly Central FL to N. FL and didn't see near the amount of butterflies I usually do.

sunkissed said:Good news indeed. I travel all over FL, mostly Central FL to N. FL and didn't see near the amount of butterflies I usually do.

So why is the lack of butterflies a "good thing" ?

I believe sunkissed was saying they haven't seen many butterflies in FL, so it's a good thing that the folks in the article noticed more butterflies this year.

GardensJohn said:

So why is the lack of butterflies a "good thing" ?

I thought it was a reaction to this link that Ann posted (twice?)

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/26...

Sorry my post was a reaction to the increase of Butterflies that Ann posted, not the lack of them in Florida. I should've quoted. I would never be happy about the lack of butterflies, it has actually been weighing heavy on my heart.

Great news! I had a pretty good year, some species more than usual, some less than usual. I had a plethora of all kinds of skippers this year. The usual BSTs, Monarchs and more question marks and more Admirals. What I didn't see a lot of were Painted and American ladies.

Watching butterflies in December is always a thrill. The white mist flower is in full bloom and attracts a lot of visitors with its intense fragrance.



There were dozens of queens -







along with American Ladies, Red Admirals, and even a Variegated Frit!










The Karwinski salvia and Texas asters were popular as well.







Everything seems to be happy with this cooler weather;




and even though the Gregg's mistflower is beyond its prime, it still provides those last sips of nectar.

Same for the duranta.







It was a great day to be outdoors!

Beautiful! The butterflies are gone here, although I did see a honeybee yesterday, it was 80 degrees. One of my rosemaries is blooming, so the bee gave it a good work over.