Here's my June butterfly update since we are almost in July! I had found two red admiral eggs on the pennsylvania pellitory. Both eggs hatched but one of the cats died quite early, maybe had issues going from 1st to 2nd instar. The other one was a success and was released. The early instar cats are so tiny and inside a leaf shelter so I didn't want to disturb them by trying to get pictures early on. The chrysalids are quite pretty with little gold spots. Now I can say I have raised a red admiral and they seem pretty easy as far as caterpillars go. I also saved some of the pellitory seeds and will start a dedicated patch next spring.
Red Admiral Pics (Time from egg laid to butterfly release 5/31-6/25)
All 11 of my monarch eggs I found were a success and I finished releasing the last four yesterday. I only took pics of a couple at release time since I have an overabundance of other monarch pictures from years past. I still have not seen another monarch (other than the ones I just released) since that first one laid eggs.
Monarch (Time from eggs laid to last butterfly release 6/3-6/28)
One day when I was out gardening I saw a yellow butterfly and followed it to try and get a picture. I assumed it was just an orange or clouded sulphur. But it looked different and after looking at the picture I discovered it was a sleepy orange. Probably not very exciting to you southerners, but I had never seen one before. Apparently they are kind of uncommon this far north, especially this early. It was the first for Illinois on BugGuide and iNaturalist. BAMONA had a few undocumented sightings listed, but only one with a picture in the very southern part of Illinois. So, I was watching this butterfly for a while and it was flying really low and obviously looking for host plants. I didn't see it lay any eggs, but did see it flying away from my patch of senna marilandica. So I looked the leaves over well and sure enough found eggs. The sleepy orange disappeared and I have not seen any since. The eggs looked like sulphur eggs, but I couldn't be sure they were from the sleepy orange. I brought them in and they are now in the chrysalis stage and I do think they are sleepy oranges based on the looks of caterpillars and chrysalids.
Sleepy Orange Pics (Mama?, eggs found 6/14, chrysalids 6/27)
I did find a couple of black swallowtail caterpillars on my parsley too, but I just left them on their own.
So, not too bad for June. It's all serendipity though...that I happen to be outside when the butterflies came through and laid eggs. Overall I have seen very few butterflies so far this year. Not even very many cabbage whites out and about. It seems to be a little different every year. Each year seems to be a boom or bust for different species. In this area I also seem to see the most butterflies both in quantity and variety in August and September. I don't know why that is? It does seem like the ones this early in the summer are just passing through... maybe looking for host plants and not staying around long to nectar.
At least I have plenty of other insects and spiders to watch. I try to go outside for at least a little while every day and see who's visiting. There is something new almost every day. Unfortunately many times when I id my visitors I find out they are non-indigenous, invasive, or major pests of my favorite plants! The only things I actually remove and kill though are the Japanese beetles. There does not seem to be any natural enemy of them here and left unchecked they will decimate my plants. I am hand-picking 50+ every day now and they just keep coming!
