It did cross my mind to sledge hammer rocks I already had

but yes mom got some colored gravel for her fairy gardens and had to air it out for a couple day because it smelled like turpentine

And this is just a suggestion...but if you have any seashells, throw those in. Surely they have residual salts in them.
The chemicals used to make colored rocks would scare me.

Kurt, you saw a White Admiral! It's actually a form of the Red-Spotted Purple. I think taxonomists might still be arguing about whether it's a subspecies or separate. We don't get them down here but I've always wanted to see one!

Unbelievable detail in those old photos Kurt!!!! That skipper nectaring on the sunflower is superb!

Isn't nectaring a word? My spell check doesn't recognize it. "Look up nectaring" says not found. I can't find nectaring in online dictionaries. It HAS to be a word! At any rate, I'm telling my spellcheck it IS a word & to recognize it from now on. That's my story & I'm sticking to it!

I tried a puddling tray for an entire summer. No dice. The problem here too is that it's so hot I had to go out & put water in the durn thing about 10 times a day b/c it kept drying up. After keeping that up for an entire summer & not getting one butterfly puddling I ditched that idea.

I've also tried puddling several times over the years and never got any butterflies. Yet, I see them doing this in ruts beside the road and in other more out of the way places. I do have mud dauber wasps coming regularly to steal the mud.

Sulphurs puddling in a ditch (poor quality, but fits the bill).

I will search my photos because I know I have some puddling ones. I thought they would be in my vacation photos on Facebook, but apparently not?

Breakfast first, though...

Here's a pretty little thing puddling from a perch. Acmon Blue
Plebejus acmon (Westwood, [1851])

Just gorgeous Leslieray! Blues always fascinate me and besides being beautiful, they're cute.

the Blues! Great shots, Leslieray!!!

It's the first one like it i've seen that closely perhaps ever.

I meant to say earlier that nectaring is a word. So is parasatized. There are many science-type words that aren't in my dictionary.

Love that Blue - they're so hard to get decent photos of because they're so tiny!

Pictures when I wake up later!

Thank YOU! How many times have I typed in parasatized & had everything tell me there is no such word?! HA! It won't be telling me that again!

Get that caffeine poured in you Melanie - we can't wait for pictures!

Okay, I'm fed and caffeinated! Time to catch up! Where have I been lately? I don't think I know the answer to that!

So all five of the original Black Swallowtail eggs I found are now in their chrysalis! Here's a look at the caterpillars.



And I can't remember if I mentioned it, but I found another Giant ST cat on the Wild Lime!



Meanwhile, I'm having mixed success with the Spicebush STs. Some of the eggs I found looked like duds to me, so I wasn't surprised when they didn't hatch. But I had a couple that turned gray, but then no caterpillar. I did have these tiny insects in the container, though. At first, I thought I had brought them in and I squished them. But last night I was looking at the eggs that I knew were gray and they were empty! I panicked, thinking I had caterpillars with no fresh food. But instead there were more of those little insects. They're dead in the container, so I'm going to do some research and see what might parasatize an egg and maybe get one under my microscope. I've never had this happen before.

Meanwhile, one of my larger cats died. And a couple of the chrysalises didn't look good. Let me explain. This is a chrysalis of a Spicebush that it about to emerge. The chrysalis will darken, but it usually does so in a fairly even manner overall. Also, you can see the pattern on the wings.



Now, this one grew spots on it which is not normal. It now has mold growing on it, but I'm going to clean that up in a bit. The chrysalis should not color like this.



This is a chrysalis from the next day that emerged very shortly after these pictures. One way to tell they're really close it to look at the body. See how you can see segmented "rings" around where the body is? When the body loosens itself from the chrysalis and you see those "rings" or segments, it's close. I actually had to help this one pull itself out. I didn't think it was going to make it from the start because where the chrysalis makes its "hinge" (where the wings end and the body begins) there is a natural bend. But this one was really creased and I didn't think it was going to come out right. But we'll see in a moment.



So they started emerging and I had two males and a female. The one in the chrysalis you just saw came out mostly okay. One of his wings was a little bent, but he was flying just fine. To tell the difference in gender, males are more silvery-gray while females are blue. Here are the males...



And here's the female. I added an underside pic for fun.



Meanwhile, I'm still finding Black ST cats on the Rue. The batch that's pupated grew pretty fast. My Rue must be pretty nutritious.



I keep scaring up Gulf Frits wherever I go. This one is on Spanish Needles that have gone to seed.



In sad news, I lost one of the Sulphur cats so I'm down to just the one now. Sulphurs die a lot. It just happens.

Now, a question I receive a lot is if the butterflies I release stay in my yard. While I'm sure they venture forth, I do notice a correlation between what I release and what I see. So I wasn't too surprised to see this female Spicebush flying around the other day.



And I was happy to see this Gulf Frit enjoying my new Pentas.



All right, I'm on a mission to clean my tanks today. I'm going to run them through the dishwasher so they can get hot enough to really disinfect them. My hands are too sensitive to wash dishes in really hot water. Plus, it hurts my back. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but now is a good time because so many of them are in their pupa phase. I'm off to clean!

I had my first 'born' yesterday, a little girl. Its stormy here, and Im afraid its going to die waiting to get out to eat. I put a piece of watermelon in there, I hope she makes it.

Good Job, Melanie and Pam!!

Sun kinda came out. I took it and put it on some lantana. It sat for a bit, then, oh my, when it flew...it flew. Up in the dogwood, then to the top of the live oak, a glide across the front yard and then zoom across the street. Another came out this morning, but I think it needs to stretch a bit more, its bigger than the first. I hope my pictures turn out, I would know, if someone had not taken the cord ugh

Pam, while I was typing you released your butterfly.

I was glad I woke up early this morning, even though it was due to my upper body hurting. I've been running in and out all morning. I got the dishwasher loaded with my Gladware and Critter Keepers. I'm running the extra "heat sanitizing" cycle just to really kill everything. But I kept running outside to dump old dried up leaves, empty chrysalises, etc. Then, I started taking pictures, collecting caterpillars, and I deadheaded the Salvia while I was at it!

It was pretty busy out there! Even though the clouds were coming and the wind was picking up, everyone was still out there nectaring. I thought it was going to rain longer and I brought in the hummingbird feeder so I can put it through the dishwasher (I made sure to buy one that's dishwasher safe). But now it stopped raining and I wonder if the hummingbirds are out there wondering what happened. Let them eat Pentas!

Well, the Gulf Frits are out there and there's plenty of them.



This Zebra Longwing chrysalis has been on my plant way longer than it should have been. And you can see the wing development. But I had to get real close to see that there was a hole in it where something either parasatized it and came out, or more likely, something broke in and ate part of it. If it had been parasatized, I don't think the wings would have developed as far as they did.



Dainty Sulphurs were hanging out by the road on the other side of the street.



The Giant ST made an appearance. It only ate the Pentas, but it did hit all the colors.



Then, I saw a very worn out Spicebush. This one is a survivor. I can't tell if it's male or female because it's missing most of the lower wings. But it was flying just fine.



This Zebra Longwing has also had some near misses.



I collected more eggs and Black ST cats. See, I told you I was lying when I said I would leave them out there. I just can't bring myself to do it. Anyway, you can see the top one had molted recently because that's his head capsule in front of him.



And then I finally saw a Black ST adult! I'm trying to think if I've seen one this year. This is a male; you can tell by all the yellow. At least he was just there to feed. I've got enough babies now, thank you.



Then, another Spicebush ST came by. This one still had its wings and was clearly male.



This Long-Tailed Skipper was competing with the bees for the Porterweed.



In case you're wondering where most of this action takes place, I took some pictures of the "official" butterfly garden. A few years back I asked Dad if I could carve out a piece of the lawn and he let me.



So on the right side you can see Pentas of red, purple, and pink. In the back is a Sweetbay Magnolia (host for Tiger ST) with Porterweed and Salvia 'Black and Blue' and Salvia "Mystic Spires' all kind of intertwining. The Rue (host for Black ST and Giant ST) is in the very back behind all the plants. For some reason, things don't like to grow too close to the fence but the Rue seems to do all right. There are also Passiflora lutea (host Gulf Frit and Zebra Longwing) plants coming in the back. The trellis is where the P. suberosa (Corkystem Passion Vine) is growing. All the way in the front right corner is Salvia 'Amistad'. The empty spot in front is where I tried some Florida Pennyroyal. I'm not giving up on them yet. The left front is Carolina Petunias (hosts Common Buckeyes). And there's my hummingbird feeder hanging on a Shepard's Hook. Yes, I strategically placed it near the Salvia and Pentas. Also, I figure the birds feel safer with all that vegetation around.



On the left side, we have another Sweetbay Magnolia right behind the obelisk. There's more Rue all the way in the back. The obelisk has P. lutea growing all around it, but it doesn't want to seem to go up it this year. What can you do? The red in the back is Salvia 'Saucy Red'. You can see more Pentas, but one died so I have to plant one in that spot. But I still haven't planted the ones I got for a dollar on the Lowe's death rack so one will go there. There's another Salvia 'Amistad' in the left corner and the green in front is weeds I need to pull. There are two Florida Pennyroyal in there, too and one is still green and alive. I hope they self seed. And in the right front are the Carolina Petunias again. They actually self-seeded themselves throughout, but those in front are the four plants I started with.

Forgot to post my current "pupation chamber". That's just what I call the Critter Keeper I'm keeping the pupa in. In the picture, it's just the Tersa Sphinx Moths, but I also put some Pipevine Swallowtail chrysalises in there later. It's important to have sticks in there for the butterflies and moths to dry on. They can also use them to help pull themselves out of the pupa.

A few more pictures from my wandering around.

There are several Spicebush males out there. They seem to enjoy chasing each other off. And the other butterflies.



Giant ST is still out there.



And then a male Monarch showed up.



Then, I saw a female Monarch nectaring on a Gesneriad I've had for years. It's Copper Leaf (Chrysothemis pulchella) I just wanted to show that sometimes plants we don't think of as nectar plants will be used.