First Pipevine Swallowtail Eggs and Wren's Nest

12 years ago

A female pipevine swallowtail - probably the one I released a couple of weeks ago - hung out in the garden in the middle of the day, typical egg-laying time. So I came back later and found just one cluster of eggs, but it's a big one -

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I also released two more pipevine swallowtails, a male and the second female of the season. The female was a big one, and I imagine it won't be too long before she'll be laying eggs out there, too.

The red admiral girls are still laying eggs right and left, and the sleepy orange caterpillars have become visible! :)

I know this isn't a bird forum, but I've got to share these pictures of a Carolina wren's nest. A friend of ours climbed some of our oak trees to repair some hurricane damage several years ago. He left his climbing spikes here, he forgot to come get them and we forgot to bring them back to him for a long time, and then his legs were badly injured in a car wreck, so he told us to just keep them. Wrens have made nests in some interesting places before, like my potted plants or on a little ledge area under the front porch, but this was too funny!

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And here's the five eggs -

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Sherry

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Comments (9)

susanlynne48
12 years ago
Awwwwww, I love the Carolina Wrens. So cute, and not very shy at all. What an endeavor to build a nest in that location!

I've got a couple of small birds hiding out in my big honeysuckle right now, by the suet feeder I put out. I can't get close enough to ID them right now, the Honeysuckle is such a tangled web of foliage and stems, and they holler at me to get back in the house so they can have access to their suet. I love the birds, too, so thanks for sharing the photo.

Now, that is one big batch of eggs on that little stem! Maybe she's saving her energy by laying them all at once.

Susan
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years ago
Those wrens are so darned funny! Can you believe that such a little bird has such a BIG voice?

Dorie
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Nice picture of a Battus philinor larva. Much lighter colored than the ones I've collected in SE AZ. FWIW: At the place I have collected them several times in SE AZ, the plants are also very hard to locate down in and under all the other weeds of the area, making it also very difficult to find the larva. This was partially due to the larva almost completely defoiliating them. I found it fairly common to find several earlier instar larva feeding on the same small plant at first and before they disperse on their own - probably because they had about devoured the current plant. But I learned a trick for finding the plant by finding the larva during two narrow windows of time daily. Easiest with 4th, 5th and 6th instar larva because of their greater size. At least at this location in AZ, during the last 1/2 to 3/4 hour of daylight the larva tend to move off the pipevine and to a higher elevation on whatever other plant happens to be close by (so they are 3'-6' above ground), spend the night there and then descend back to the pipevine the next morning right after dawn. Down in the weeds very close to where they are spending the night will be the pipevine they were feeding on. Anyway, I found that I could drive the roads in the evenings and just watch for larva up on other plants. Got to where I could see them even at 30-35 MPH.
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I forgot to answer your question about giant swallowtail host plants. I have several wafer ashes, and that's the favorite of GSTs here. I had to cut nearly all the leaves off all of them to feed my GST cats this year, plus I used rue. They didn't lay any eggs on my orange or satsuma trees this year, so I didn't use citrus leaves. Two of my young rue plants died recently right after the heat wave we had in June, and another one has dead parts on it. I've got one rue plant that I've had for years that's still going strong. It's growing in the shade of a my Ellen's Blue butterfly bush and a rose bush, so I think they really need the shade. I'm thinking about replacing the dead rues with more wafer ash/Ptelea trifoliata. I had planted rue, because black swallowtails use it, too. So maybe I'll replace the dead rues with wafer ashes, and when they've attained some size, I'll plant some rue underneath them. And maybe I'll plant some rue in the shade of other plants, like my big orange tree. The leaves have all grown back on the wafer ashes, which is good. I've released 27 giant swallowtails so far, and there are a good many chrysalides left, so I'll probably be needing more GST host plants soon! Sherry
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MissSherry
Original Author
12 years ago
They sure do have big voices! TEA KETTLE, TEA KETTLE, TEA KETTLE!
I'm a total nature nut, Susan, love the butterflies, birds, even the frogs and bugs!
I'll be checking the vines for more pipevine swallowtail eggs.
Sherry
caterwallin
12 years ago
Wow, it looks like she left you the mother lode there, Sherry! ;-) I think the most I ever had in a bunch was about 24. They're my very favorite caterpillar to raise. I love to put a few lengths of vine in a big storage container and watch the cats scurry along on their way to somewhere that I guess they have in mind. They always make it look like it's urgent. Ha.

That's a Carolina wren for ya, building a nest in such a strange place. One year I had a pair build a nest on one of the shelves in my workshop after those little opportunists sneaked in there a few days when I had the door open and made themselves right at home. I didn't shut the door again until after the babies fledged. I have bluebird houses stacked up in our corncrib and one year the Carolina wrens made a nest in one of them even with it turned upside down. My dad had one build a nest in his fishing net one yet. Out of all of the birds that I get here, I call them the most eccentric. :) They sure are cute little things and they love the peanut butter/cornmeal/shortening mix that I put out in a log feeder for them in the winter.
Cathy
MissSherry
Original Author
12 years ago
They sure are cute, Cathy! They're very bold, coming right up on my porch to check out the caterpillars in the cages, always keep me entertained!
I found another, smaller cluster of pipevine swallowtail eggs on a vine group on another fence in my garden. They usually lay a couple of clusters each day for three or four days before they're done. They're my favorite caterpillar and adult butterfly, also, Cathy.
I also found two American lady nests on some cudweed. I may or may not bring them in to finish raising.
Sherry
susanlynne48
12 years ago
I just started getting the Carolina Wrens a couple years ago. The first year, I didn't see a lot of them, but last year, they were everywhere I looked. They like to walk around on the ground where they can snack on grass seeds, other seeds, and they will let me get within 4 or 5 feet to observe them. I love those perky little tailfeathers!

I never see them very high off the ground, do you guys? They just stay low in foliage and on the ground looking for food. I wish I would get a nest of them. I leave lots of strings, "fluffy" material, dead plant prunings, etc., around the yard for all the birds to utilize for nest building. I do have a family of Cardinals that have been with me for years. They have claimed my potted Blueberries "theirs" whenever they fruit. But they are hilarious to watch as they scrounge around in the pots and yank the herries off.

I am a nature lover, too, MissSherry. All are welcome to dine at the Inn, nest, and raise their young.

Susan
bernergrrl
12 years ago
Cute--can't wait to show my daughter the nest of eggs--she adores birds' eggs. Wish I could afford to get her the replicas but may have to try to paint some...They look like they have a little sprinkle of cinnamon. :)

That's a great pic of the Pipevine eggs too. We're supposed to get them here, so I'll have to get some pipevine.
susanlynne48
12 years ago
Is that A. tomentosa, MissSherry, and how big is it right now? Mine are just starting to leaf out.

Altho it is not time for it to emerge yet, I think I lost my A. clematitis in the drought last year. I just couldn't get it watered in the backyard because it's getting too expensive for me to water back there.

Susan
MissSherry
Original Author
12 years ago
I hope you haven't lost your A. clematitis, Susan. Mine have slowly died out, so I don't get the impression it's very long lived.
Yes, it's the A. tomentosa in the picture. They've colonized all down the entire length of one side of the garden fence and partly on the real long side. They've thrown out new shoots, some of which are about 15" long - they'll grow VERY quickly from now until spring is over, then slow down considerably when it gets hot. A. tomentosa have proven to be the most reliable host plant for pipevine swallowtails for me. My VA snakeroot/A. serpentarias have mostly died out also - they might have reseeded, but the caterpillars would eat the entire plants down to the nub before any of them ever got a chance to bloom - I would have liked to have seen a bloom in my garden.
Sherry

First Pipevine Swallowtail Eggs and Wren's Nest

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susanlynne48

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

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First Pipevine Swallowtail Eggs and Wren's Nest

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susanlynne48

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

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