I'm glad those Gulf Fritillaries made it through the winter around here. It couldn't have been easy for them through all the freezes.
I went to a native plant meeting last night and the speaker from Boerne was talking about the Monarchs and some factors they responsible for the 56% decrease in population within one year. They've got a project going to locate "safe" milkweed for people. Many of the nursery-grown milkweeds are sprayed with pesticides and (even worse) systemic pesticides (not safe for caterpillars for 3 months to one year depending on what they used and should have all leaves removed that were present when bought). I was shocked when they revealed that one of the area native plant nurseries sells milkweeds sprayed with systemic pesticides and refused to stop doing that. The nursery milkweed are important for those who don't want to raise milkweed from seed themselves and don't know anyone who does who can share. I've got a few dozen tiny seedling milkweeds outside right now, but they won't be ready to share for quite a while. I've heard a few things lately that I didn't know about the Monarchs. Like that 95° or up can be lethal to the caterpillars. Well, if I have any of those caterpillars this year I'll raise them all indoors just in case it gets that hot. But I'd do that anyway. Hmmm, no wonder they don't usually hang around in Texas in the summer! Some people lately tried to tell me that some Monarchs are in San Antonio in one area year-round now, but I really don't believe that. Any of their caterpillars present during the summer would be toast there unless raised inside in the A/C! I have to go into that city fairly often and have never seen any Monarchs hanging out there outside of the usual migration/breeding periods of time. I lived in that city most of my life until I moved here in 1989. Much more peaceful out here. One of the many articles addressing the Monarch problems lately:
http://news.nationalgeographic...
