Monarch Madness

Check your tags!

After banding birds this fall at Fort Morgan, marking monarchs would have been a natural segue. For the past week we have passed three bushes with butterflies hanging, like Tiffany ornaments, from the limbs.

Monarchs

Monarchs on Palmetto Dr

 It’s a mystery to me why the Monarchs prefer these three plants, identical to dozens we pass on our morning walk.

But it’s a bigger mystery how these great-grandchildren find their way back to their ancestor’s fall migration routes every year.

This is the 2009 Fall Migration map from Learner.Org and we are just past the peak dates for migration at this latitude. So it’s too late for me to tag butterflies this year, but the migration rates and routes can be tracked here.

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/index.html

 

2009 Fall Monarch Migration Map from Learner.Org

 The process and goals of the Monarch taggers are very similar to that of the Bird/Hummer Study Group, but their volunteers include thousands of teachers, students and gardeners across the country.

Interested individuals can purchase a tagging kit from Monarch Watch with complete instructions for only $15.

http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/index.htm

 

Although rain is in the forecast, it’s dry here so I am watering my garden to encourage my plants to flower, instead of wilt, in hopes of providing some food for the migrating butterflies

And I will dutifully check for tags on the unfortunate butterflies that do not survive the fierce north winds on the Gulf.

Fragile victim of the storm

The Mother of all Caterpillars

Life cycle of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly

A few weeks ago I noticed a caterpillar munching on my potted parsley. After identifying her as Black Swallowtail (how did I survive before Google?) I left her to her alone to graze in the sunshine. Evidently she chose to morph into a chrysalis nearby because only a week later I was privileged to watch as she warmed in the morning sun on bedding I was airing on the deck.

First Swallowtail

 

Days later I snipped some parsley as I prepared for Betsy’s visit, and I noticed little yellow dots on the leaves. I googled again, then tucked the leaves back in the parsley plant among the other Swallowtail eggs.  

Young Swallowtail caterpillars

When they hatched there were dozens of little black & white worms and they grew to fat caterpillars as they devoured the parsley. One evening I counted over 85 growing Swallowtails

 

After a few days I had to drive to town to search out organic parsley for my growing brood.

When I tried to gently transfer them they threatened me with orange forked antennae called osmeterium. (Apparently they smell awful to birds, but it’s not much of a deterrent to a determined ‘grandmother’.)

 

 

 

Swallowtails on parsley

One by one they dropped off the parsley and crawled away.

I was able to find about twenty and monitored them as each transformed into a chrysalis and braved the thunderstorms.

Swallowtail Chrysalis

And then last week they began to emerge – from everywhere!

I had Swallowtails sunning on the deck, on the steps, on the tomato plants, and on the chairs.

 

 So the cycle begins again (and the parsley is recovering nicely).

 

 

 But yesterday I saw little yellow eggs on one of the Passion Flower vines transplanted from Kentucky, and today I identified the hairy little caterpillars of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly…

Earth Day in Paradise!

I captured some images this week illustrating how we celebrate Earth Day every day in Fort Morgan…

Windy day for a walk

A little help in the garden

Water lillies after the drought

Luna rescued from the gale

Marsh hawk?

Prickley pear in bloom

Lizard love

What are you looking at?

 And our sunsets are magnificent…

What’s an Environmentalist to do?

In spite of the fact that Fort Morgan peninsula is famous for the fall migrations of hummingbirds, warblers, and grosbeaks… the mosquito remains our ‘Official Bird’.

The monarch and fritillary migrations are also tourist attractions, but the large population and variety of butterflies doesn’t touch that of the orthoptera here – the loathsome cockroach. I “bombed” the little storage building (where the hurricane shutters and beach toys are stored) for the third time and this morning I still found bugs in various stages of death & dying scattered around the floor. They are evidently immune to all three brands of insecticide sold at Lowes, damn!  And I’m told this mammoth is only one of the varieties we have happily cohabiting here; the Oriental, the German, the American, and the new Green Cuban… damn, again.

But this morning I came up the steps to find Sophie ‘on point’ on the deck. Thinking she was watching one of the migrating doves that have recently discovered the bird feeder, I came around the corner slowly to find she was pointing the window – or rather a 4-inch stink bug sitting on the screen. She gave up eventually and just laid down, and it flew away…. probably down to my little storage building with the roaches so I’ll have to deal with it tomorrow…

Enormous stink bug above Sophie

And those Love Bugs from Florida!!!