Today I REALLY broke the rule about not chasing butterflies, but it sort of paid off, so I guess I don't regret it. Except for the amount of time I spent following her around, I didn't really get what I wanted. There is probably a life lesson in there somewhere.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
Monarch butterfly. Female.
Why did I take that picture, you ask? Because of what she was doing:
In the picture above she is depositing this egg on the milkweed plant.
I followed her around the backyard, where sometimes she rested on plants (generally somewhere I could not get a good picture of her):
And sometimes stopped on milkweed plants and laid eggs:
See how she curls her body toward the leaf? That's when she deposits the egg.
Mostly she just flew around, much to my aggravation:
Another of the eggs I saw her lay.
I have found several monarch eggs in the last few days, and have seen a lot of leaves with first-instar caterpillar damage, but aside from the one tiny caterpillar I found last week that disappeared by the next day, I have only found one other caterpillar. So a lot of them have hatched, but they are not surviving to become butterflies, or even bigger caterpillars.
Here's one I found yesterday. It's probably still first instar, or VERY early second. You can see how much of the leaf it has eaten at this point. Later on, this evening, I looked at it again and it had started another hole nearby.
I have a lot of milkweed in my backyard this year, it's a shame that it is not supporting a lot of monarch caterpillars.
This is the closest she let me get...
You can see that her colors are pretty faded. I think she has been around for a while. She flew kind of clumsily at times, too.
Other Bug:
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