friday's video release of BST male #11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Melanie, hope your feel better soon and that you have a fabulous trip. We'll look forward to a full report when you return.

Melanie, you will love AMS! My all time favorite city, great people, great walking and great restaurants. Have fun!

I have not been around here for some days because I was in your country. My son lives in Chicago and I went to visit him and his family for a month.
But I'm back now and there are still butterflies in the garden.
"espejito "


"monarca"

Needed a little bit of Butterfly Therapy today. It warmed up after a chilly night so all of the regular characters were out.

American Lady



Sulphur



Now that the Greg's Mistflower is blooming, the Queens will be arriving in droves.

after a quiet couple of cold and rainy days we have the release of BST male #12
placed on the purple verbena he hung around for about a hour

Pretty! Maybe I'll get some BSTs to raise this year!

Today, Im seeing the most butterflies of the year. I really got a slow start. As Im typing, Im watching a GST chasiing any and everything away.
Yesterday I found my first queen cat.

The Giant Swallowtail I raised finally eclosed and I released it:

All of the group of Crimson Patch I raised before are pupated and this one just emerged this evening. I also have a few more of the young cats I brought in.

I have five Monarch chrysallises and one Queen chrysallis that I'm waiting on. 3 2-tailed tiger chrysallis so far, with one cat soon to pupate. I found two more tiger cats on my wild cherry trees also which I brought in also...love the tigers!
Today I noticed that Bordered Patch cats were out on some Bush Sunflower plants...been a long time since I've had those.

The other new cats are American Lady ones, which are hiding on my Sweet Everlasting plants:

That is just wonderful Linda, you are having better luck than we are having here, but them you are quite a few miles farther south.

The "espejitos"have been laying their eggs on the passiflora. There are lots of caterpillars feeding on it


And the butterflies visit the garden every day..

video release of BST female #6 - it is very warm and she was bouncing off the walls , ready to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Can you folks see these OK? It's glorious here today, temp getting progressively warmer, and all of a sudden, these things are all over the place, this container was clean this morning, and now they're all over it, they look like teen tiny caterpillars to me, or thousand leggers, I'm worried they might be gypsy moths, because I want to wipe them if they are, but if they're something worthwhile, I want to protect them.Anyone have any idea what they are?

They do look like caterpillars, but I can't see enough to tell which.

BST release

male #13 - pic #2 - I set him on top of the balloon flower stems , but he decided he was happier in the middle. pic #3 - his first flight landed him in the grass , which worried me with all the morning bird traffic , his 2nd flight was better and out of the yard



and female #7

God Kurt, absolutely beautiful!!

A little advice, please. I just bought my parsley plants, mostly to feed the caterpillars I'm not supposed to call "parsley worms" (I'm in the middle of planting stuff and too lazy to look back at that thread for the proper name) and I realize that I will be going against my friends the birds with this one, but here's the deal: I'm going to plant up a deck box and then put it, where? My herbs are on my upper deck, where the birds aren't allowed, and they seem to know that, hot pepper taught the squirrels, if I put the parsley there, will the "worms" be able to find the parsley, I will have other stuff there to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, bees have already found it - if I put it in a more "woodsy" part of the property, they won't stand a chance even if they find it easily, is that right? Welcome all advice and reassurance

I would plant host plants wherever you can , that best fits your's and the plants needs / requirements. The butterflies will find it.
I had some small bronze fennel seedlings under a table on the deck last year and they were all egg bombed , even though they were too small to support the caterpillars.

As far as birds go , my large bronze fennel is between a butterfly bush and red dogwood that are by my bird feeders and birds are in and squirrels are around all the time. I didn't notice any of them bothering the caterpillars.

I do think one cardinal got a caterpillar that was on some low lying Bishop's Weed , pretty much easy pickings that close to the ground I think. It was the first time I saw caterpillars in the Bishop's weed. I'm guessing the fennel was so full (another first for me) a female laid her eggs on the near by Bishop's weed.

I just found a medium size Black Swallowtail (BST) caterpillar the other day. It was on a dying Rue Plant, and the foliage was almost gone, so I moved it to one of the two small Rue plants I'm going to plant to replace the dying one. That's one thing about the Black Swallowtail...it can use many different host plants...parsley, Rue, Dill, Fennel, etc. Once a female BST butterfly finds your parsley, it can lay eggs and once they hatch, the cats start eating.
I found a cat on some wild pellitory plants...probably a Red Admiral cat. I've had some outside a while back on the Stinging Nettle, but didn't want to deal with the nettle, so I left them outside. Now, with pellitory...that doesn't sting, so I brought it in to raise.

Kurt, I took your advice and put all eight plants in a deck box in a nice spot on my upstairs deck where my herbs and some marigolds are, along with my as yet unused hummingbird feeders. I've got peppermint and pineapple sage AND pineapple mint AND orange mint (the last two came today, I went to this nursery and went a bit bat-poop crazy, just a bit), chamomile, tons of basil, rosemary, lavender, that's just starting to bloom...everything but a little praying mantis in a tux taking reservations, so I'm hoping the butterflies think it's worth climbing the stairs!

Update on my Monarch saga here in NW Missouri.

After getting first eggs laid (~30) on April 7, I noticed a few others cruising through. While I am still not up to 100 % healthwise, it was a while before I could go check thinks out.

Between then and Easter my egg counts went up to > 130. This was over 2 patches of milkweed. Subsequently many of the eggs disappeared due to varmints.

About a week or so ago I got out and checked things and counted ~ 50 cats in 1st & 2nd instar. This is in my from Swamp MW bed where I have ~ 25 plants. They are now up to ~ 10 inches or so.

I have a tray of Swamp 60 plants that I wintered over in back and the plants are now ~ 4 inches tall and I have ~ 20 cats there. 15 or so on a patch of Butterfly Weed in the back.

I am up to ~ 85 + Cats. Trying to get my rearing area set up to bring some in and start raising them.

Truly amazing that shortly after Mother's day I should have butterflies if it warms up. Been cool and lots of rain lately. Considering last year I saw my fir adult on May 29.

Seems from all my reading that in the Midwest we could easily have 4 generations this year and an outside chance of 5 assuming the weather holds up.

According to Dr. Chip Taylor at Monarch Watch this will be a unique year. Hoping this is a great year and that we add back to the Monarch population big time this year.