Butterfly Gardening and Conservation Blog

I found fritillary eggs!

A fritillary was flying around the yard today and laid a bunch of eggs all over the violets we have growing!

It was my husband who first saw it and told me he saw a butterfly that didn't look like one we see a lot. So I went out and looked. I could tell it was some type of fritillary right away. At first I thought it might have been a Meadow Fritillary though. It was too small to be a Great Spangled Fritillary. I thought it seemed oranger than a Variegated Fritillary I had seen a couple of years ago, and I was under the impression they mostly just used passion vine and not violets. However, after asking around and checking my butterfly books I now think that it was a Variegated Fritillary. Which is good, because they should be easier to raise than the other kinds.

All together I collected over 20 eggs. I hope they are ok and I don't have any problems raising them.

I noticed that she mostly laid the eggs on really small, newer leaves rather than bigger older ones. Although a few were on bigger, older leaves. Also, most were laid on the underside of the leaves, but some were on the top of the leaves. Mostly it was the bigger, older leaves that she laid the eggs on top of.

She hung around the yard for a long time too! Around an hour or more I think. We have lots of violets growing and lots of nectar sources, which she stopped at a few times too. I think she was happy in our yard! At least as much as a butterfly might or might not be able to be happy!

I took a few picturer, but I don't know if any of them will be ok - she didn't sit still long enough to be able to get any good pictures.

Also, not butterfly related, we saw the female duck that lives in the creek behind our house - and see had 7 babies ducks with her!!!

American Ladies everywhere!

Well, not everywhere exactly. But today I saw two different American Lady butterflies around my garden! One, the bigger of the two, I've seen off and on over the past 3 days. The other is smaller and not as brightly colored.

I've tried and tried to get a good picture of one of them from the side to put on my site, but they don't seem to like to be photographed! Today I was able to get one picture, but I don't know how it will turn out.

The bigger one it turns out is a female also. It was trying to lay eggs, although I didn't see any. Either I just didn't see any, it was only laying them selectively, it hasn't mated yet, or it ran out, I guess.

So I just spent a half an hour out in the heat trying to get a picture! And fighting Japanese beetles at the same time. Well, time to cool off and try again later!

Is the abundance of American Ladies due to the 4th of July weekend? I don't think so! But you never know!