I had an interesting and productive day. Not as productive as the other day because it was quite warm outside and that just saps my strength so fast. But I feel pretty good for me. To start with, I have exciting news from BAMONA. They have confirmed that Hairstreak I saw at MOSI a few weeks ago. It's not a White M Hairstreak, it's a Fulvous Hairstreak! I've never seen one before. They're not even in my book. That's probably because they came to Florida in the 1970's so they're not really native. In fact, their host plant is the terribly invasive Brazilian Pepper tree! Here's the link to the identification page where you can see he says it is uncommon to rare in this area of Florida:
http://www.butterfliesandmoths...
I had some butterfly sightings today since it was plenty warm enough. The first was a Monarch that flew by me and right toward the neighbor's yard. I guess it's better than flying toward the street, I suppose. Never did get a picture of it. Then, a Zebra Longwing flew by when Dad was out there with me and it was flying rather fast for a Zebra. They normally act like they've got nothing better to do than to float right by, but this one was in a hurry for some reason. Finally, I spotted a Barred Sulphur (BAMONA calls them Barred Yellows).
And shortly after, I walked around front and saw a Long-Tailed Skipper on my blanket flower. But it soon flew over to the plumbago to nectar. They're rarely on this plant. Usually they stay on the porterweed but it's not blooming right now so they don't have a lot of choice. I guess it's "eat what's blooming or don't eat at all!"
I've still got Monarchs on the Giant Milkweed munching away. I call these "Fat Man" and "Little Boy".
I was putting away my tools when a Zebra Longwing hit up the Duranta (common name: Golden Dewdrop).
I was doing a final walk-around and saw this Monarch in its "J" on a dead part of a Spanish Needles plant. What's funny is earlier in the day, Dad looked at that patch up front and asked me why I (or he) hadn't removed it. I said there was a milkweed there until a few days ago so that's why we hadn't touched the area around it. But both of us totally missed this guy. I brought him in to the house where he can safely pupate and become a butterfly.
In butterfly related things, I have a new pillowcase. You see, Mom's church has a sewing club and they met this morning. They've been making pillowcases for cancer kids. The kids get to pick one when they go to the hospital to make it more "homey". Mom picks fun kid-friendly fabrics and makes all these pillowcases. So she had them in a stack on the table to take with her to church. She generally shows me the fabric, but I saw one on top that I didn't recognize. And it had butterflies on it! So I totally stole it and claimed it as my own. To be fair, I volunteered to donate to her fabric fund to replace it. I thought you guys would like it. Look at all those blue butterflies - beautiful!
