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molanic

Video of pathetic american lady.

molanic
9 years ago

I haven't had too much butterfly activity around here yet this year. I'm especially missing the tiger swallowtails. Past years I had a lot of them which prompted me to start wafer ash and wild black cherry from seed. They are finally good sized this year at 2-3 feet and bushy. All season I have only seen a single tiger fly over the house and not even drop in for a drink.

I did manage to find one monarch cat, but no eggs yet. I also found four black swallowtail cats which is fun so far. A few american ladies have been doing massive egg dumps and decimating my still small host plants for them. I haven't brought any in to raise because I fear I will quickly run out of food for them. I hope at least a few made it to adulthood on their own. The other day I was watching a female american lady apparently straining to lay eggs on my pearly everylasting. She was on it for a long time just walking along the stem dragging her rear and straining. I had never seen a butterfly do this (they usually look more dignified laying eggs), so I decided to try out the video feature on my new camera. It can do 1080p which is good for viewing them up close on a big display. I always have to manually up the quality on the You-Tube bar for some reason though since it defaults to a lower setting. From 2014_06

I should have also taken a video of myself looking like another "pathetic american lady" when I was following a red admiral around the yard with pots of false nettles trying to get her to notice them! She was obviously looking for a host plant but not finding it. I knew I was batty when I found myself actually saying out loud "look, this it... right here"! I don't think she ever did go to it, but I keep checking for eggs.

I did get much prettier videos of a painted lady and tons of honeybees enjoying my butterflyweed. {{gwi:490707}}From 2014_06


From 2014_06

Comments (2)

  • bernergrrl
    9 years ago

    HI there,

    Don't know if saw a thread of mine, but American Ladies will use Prairie Sage. It's a vigorous grower, so it's easier to have than Everlasting and Pussy Toes. It's been a lifesaver for me & for the butterflies. :)

    Fun watching your videos!

  • molanic
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks, I did see your post and have some prairie sage newly planted this year. I have at least five different host plant species for them. The problem is they are just all so small still. If it was just one or two caterpillars it would be ok I think. The problem I had before is that every time I brought in food for the first few caterpillars more eggs hatched on it and their numbers grew exponentially. I ended up just having to put quite a few back outside on a host plant to fend for themselves when I couldn't find anything else they would eat. It seems these ladies regularly do very large egg dumps here and most of the eggs and tiny cats don't get eaten. I hope my prairie sage takes off soon, it was still a softball sized clump last time I checked.

    It seems the butterfly population and I can't get synchronized. A few years ago I had large numbers of monarchs and was running out of food. So I planted A LOT of milkweed that is now very plentiful and huge, but haven't had many monarchs since. The tigers and silver spotted skippers had a really good year a couple of years ago but I had no host plants at all. Now that I have good host plants for them, they are no shows. Hopefully if I just keep planting and increasing my stock of host plants all will get used eventually. I don't think that it helps any that they are currently doing mosquito spraying, gypsy moth spraying, and cutting down all the ash trees damaged by emerald ash borer. That is in addition to the non-stop herbicide and pesticide use.

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