It's finally cooled down here which means 80s for highs instead of 90s. I went out about 4pm to collect some caterpillar food and of course, look for caterpillars. I was not disappointed.
The Sennas are blooming which means you have to look at the buds and flowers to find caterpillars. Case in point.
And this guy. This is actually a different caterpillar than the first photo even though I know they look the same.
And then I found myself a big guy. Again, notice the flowers. This time of year you can pretty much skip the leaves and just look to the flowers to find your caterpillars.
Now, the flower-eating caterpillars pose one problem. Both Cloudless and Orange-Barred Sulphurs eat Senna (and Cassia). The Cloudless Sulphur is a green caterpillar and the Orange-Barred is a yellow caterpillar. So far, so good. Except, when they eat the flowers the Cloudless Sulphurs turn yellow! I also think the Orange-Barred get slightly more yellow, too. This makes it hard to identify them. But in this picture, the Cloudless Sulphur is the one in the back and you can see he has blue "rings" around him while the Orange-Barred in front maintains his normal blue pattern. Still, it gets confusing when you're used to seeing them one way but then a few months out of the year they decide to change their minds.
And for fun, here's one of my Spicebush cats. They're getting big and eating a lot of Sassafras!
