So sorry, Elaine. Hope you get to try again.

Not many butterflies out today.

Pipevine Swallowtail on zinnia. Don't know what the other little creature is....

Shy_gardner said:My Guys are out in full force today... along with some other friends most of which I couldn't even begin to get a pic of....
Don't know how you guys get such great shots....

Donna, would you mind just shooing those two just a tad further North? I live in Lancaster County, PA and never saw a live Buckeye. I only get Meadow Frits in my gardens so far.

flaflwrgrl said:


I have 2 cats that just went into their J's, 5 who are working on their silk button and 1 in chrysalis. That makes 8 fewer mouths to feed.

Sadly, I feel the same way sometimes too many mouths to feed and frass to clean up. I don't know how Mellie does this
all the time, or most of the year in Florida.

<---More Fritillary caterpillars on the Wild Violets today. Plus I found eight more Monarchs....It felt nice to hold something other than a Monarch or Black Swallowtail for a change!

<---Tawny Emperor looking a bit beat up. Not sure if this is a male or female.
I wonder if it lived on the Hackberry volunteer I left go that was coming up through another bush?

GrammaChar said:So sorry, Elaine. Hope you get to try again.

Not many butterflies out today.

Pipevine Swallowtail on zinnia. Don't know what the other little creature is....

I think the little green thing is a Bush Katydid nymph Char

Oh goody - cause I don't have enough of those already!!! :rofl:

Awww but it's so cuuuute! and hey- I love that starfishy looking cactus plant!

nativeplantlover said:

Sadly, I feel the same way sometimes too many mouths to feed and frass to clean up. I don't know how Mellie does this
all the time, or most of the year in Florida.

Really neat Emperor!

Here are a couple of pictures of the Gulf Frit cats that I am raising. Just starting to see a few more Gulf Frits and Giant Swallowtails in my backyard.

Anole

Sorry no pics. Cameras all borken.

Found a little cat on a nicotiana. No info on web. He was chowing down, mostly on the flowers. Stripes of tan and creamy color running around the body.

I also found what I think is a Black Swallowtail cat on a Golden Alexander.

Earlier in the week I had found a variegated Frit cat on some violets - so in terms of new stuff a fun week.

Common Mestra (Mestra amymone) uses the Noseburn plant (tragia) as a host for caterpillars. This low-growing vine is known for causing a burning or stinging sensation of skin when brushed. It is covered with tiny hypodermic-like needles and hurts like the dickens when I accidentally walk through it. But now that I know it's a host plant, I won't be as aggressive in digging it out.
While the Mestra is called "common", it's a rare sighting for me. The Noseburn, however, isn't rare at all!

I went to a fellow Master Gardener's home to check out the garden. It was fun and as it turned out fruitful trip.
While checking out the herb garden, we found over a dozen Swallowtail caterpillars on parsley, dill and fennel. The latter was by far the most tempting. We found 7 in a one cubic foot area. He had never seen caterpillars before there.

But the best was last. While showing me the cut down beds of asparagus and rhubarb, I caught sight of a butterfly which I could not initially identify. It was a fairly worn out and oddly colored female Monarch. I observed it to be madly laying eggs --- on grass!?

It flitted to another area and we went to investigate. Earlier we had checked out a large patch of climbing milkweed. Ted said there was some small climbing milkweed on the ground near the grass. I turned over several leaves and sure enough -- we found an egg. It was the only one we could find, but it was a fresh Monarch egg.

That was the only Monarch we observed, saw no Swallowtail adults, but did see several Skippers and a couple of Buckeyes.

GrammaChar said:Common Mestra (Mestra amymone) uses the Noseburn plant (tragia) as a host for caterpillars. This low-growing vine is known for causing a burning or stinging sensation of skin when brushed. It is covered with tiny hypodermic-like needles and hurts like the dickens when I accidentally walk through it. But now that I know it's a host plant, I won't be as aggressive in digging it out.
While the Mestra is called "common", it's a rare sighting for me. The Noseburn, however, isn't rare at all!

What a beautiful butterfly!

I have seen the Common Mestra only once here, and although it is small, it is very beautiful, I wish they were more common too. :

Woohoo!

Who would of thought, a single life, a tiny heartbeat would be the highest point in my final vacation for the year! Day 11 of 16 off, I was walking and looked and my zinnias, and saw her, him...

Ran for my net, ran back gone. So go figure.... with my luck she would be above me...

So I slowly looked up. Yep sure enough.....

It flew in the tree line, and landed on a maple leaf about 14 ft up.

My net extends to 15.

I jump a bit, and swoop down, got it.

Then I take a prideful picture, put it in the mesh cage.

Pray that when it stops fluttering, I see no dots..

And with the grace of God.

Dot-less.

I give you my first capture, all year. Hahah, now after I post this. I'll check for OE. Here we go!

today's Variegated Fritillary shots


buckeye again


and a monarch finally not just flying around the yard


none of which were very cooperative , tried to get a shot of one of two hummingbird moths too but it was too quick
tons of skippers too but I was mainly trying to get better shots of the 2 Variegated Fritillary , even checked the wild violets for cats but didn't see any.

OE FREE, and I can't believe my tablet was able to take a picture of the pocket microscope successfully! Haha



Not the best! But if it did have oe it would look like this

I've never seen a Mestra before.
Great pics all...

Be still my heart...that Common Mestra is a looker for sure