Some Butterflies Visit

David Trammel's picture

Yesterday, I had a few visitors. The first was a pair of white butterflies, clearly looking to be friendly. They moved so fast and didn't pause long enough to get a good picture of them.

 

And then this gorgeous one showed up, just begging to be photographed.

 

Sometimes you just have to stop and appreciate Nature's beauty.

Magpie's picture

That white one is a cabbage butterfly, their caterpillars are terrible pests on garden brassicas. I like to catch them and feed them to my chickens (if I have chickens at the time).

ClareBroommaker's picture

The one with the blue sure is beautiful.

Since I've been gardening in the evening until I can no longer see, I find almost every night a moth bumps into my forehead.  I have to wonder if the mosquito repellant I'm wearing (lemon eucalyptus) actually attracts moths.

I was checking out this page to look for a moth I saw visiting pentas, dahlias, lantana, and zinnias in my more ornamental garden. https://www.insectidentification.org/insects-by-type-and-region.asp?thisState=Missouri&thisType=Butterfly%20or%20Moth (Have a look at number 125, dtrammel!) I think my moth was the white lined sphinx moth (#172), though I think my visitor had mor pronounced pink stripes on its abdomen.  It was close enough to get a good look, but it was dark enough that I was a bit uncertain about color. Still, I think I saw a lot of pink in its stripes.  It also hovered over the flowers, not landing.

I read that the white lined sphinx moth is also called the humming bird moth, but there is another moth, much bigger that I think of as the hummingbird moth.  I think its caterpillar is that astounding tomato hornworm. Oh, yeah, here's that one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manduca_quinquemaculata

I think I've been visited by this guy, too. And it really  gives the impression of a humming bird! https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Hummingbird-Moth

Number 3, the Ailanthus webworm moth, on the Missouri moths and butterflies page is one I see all the time, but I had no idea it was a moth! Doesn't look like a moth to me.  Last year I watched a praying mantis slowly tippy toe closer and closer, and move side to side sneaking up to one of these Alainthus web worm moths.  I think I had to leave before the kill took place.  I don't remember it anyway.

Oh, and just one more insect comment, one that flies away from (heh-heh) butterlies and moths.  This harlequin cabbage bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_cabbage_bug  was far worse on my cabbage family plants than cabbage white butterflies ever have been.  Ugh, they just covered the plants the first year I had them.  Second year was a lot lighter problem,  And after that I haven't seen them again.  The first year I used diatomaceaus earth on my plants, sprinkled through my finest weave kitchen strainer. These bugs also just covered the cleome (ornamental flower) I had that first year. Those white butterflies at least provide the charm of flittering about and chasing each other in cute little spiral flight patterns, but these cabbage eaters I would dread to see again.

One of my FB friend-of-a-friends just posted about finding three monarch butterflies lying on her porch. She thought they were dead, but when she tried to pick them up, they fluttered off. --And she discovered her yard was covered with monarchs! First time she had ever played host to migrating monarchs, but she said they had planted a field of buckwheat this year, and she thought that had brought them in. Something to experiment with...