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Butterfly Garden

Monarch butterfly

13 years ago

Saw a Monarch on my Mexican Milkweed plant the only thing I'm worried about is that the plant has a lot of aphids and leaf cutter bees on it, should I worry about this? I'm afraid they won't leave any nectar for the butterfly. My other concern are the grackles who bathe on my fountain. They were looking at the butterfly like they wanted to eat it. The plant is near the water fountain. Are those birds going to eat it? Today was the first day seeing the butterfly, I'll have to check this morning if it came back. It was coming back to the plant several times.

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Comments (2)

skinnyhoops
13 years ago
The birds won't bother the Monarch butterflies. Monarchs are poisonious to birds and other natural predators. The monarch caterpillar eats the toxic milky sap from the milkweed plant, and this toxin carries over to the adult butterfly. Normally with mother nature, the poisonious creatures exibit themselves with bright colors so other non-poisonious creatures know to stay away from them.

As for nectar, I wouldn't worry about it. The milkweed is mostly a host plant for laying eggs. The adult monarchs have many many sources for nectar, not just milkweed. And regarding your mexican milkweed plant, I would check the underside of the leaves for monarch eggs. =)
runmede
13 years ago
I'd suggest washing the aphids off with a hose. Most Monarchs are toxic, but some birds can still eat them. Not eating a Monarch is a learned behavior so the birds have to eat at least one to know not to eat them. If the caterpillars eat the Mexican milkweed, that milkweed has pretty high toxins. If they eat butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, then they will not be as toxic. But, because they all look alike they get the same protection as those who are more toxic.

Here is a link that might be useful: Predation (Monarch Watch)
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Yes! This thread is encouraging! Hopefully they're on the rebound; even slowly, rebound is rebound. I grew more swamp milkweed from seed this year, not sure if it attracted any monarchs, as I didn't check the plants regularly, but certainly can only help, not hurt. The land in my area has a lot of common milkweed growing, and I've noticed strays popping up in my pasture and beds. Rouge: I *adore* "Mystic Spires" salvia!! Hands down it out-blooms any other annual I've had, mine were still blooming into late October, and pollinators go ga-ga over it. Unfortunately it is hard to find in my neck of the woods, only one nursery carries it that I'm aware of, and when they're gone they're gone for the season. Well, now that I have a fancy-dancy light cart, I can keep mother plants growing for cuttings over the winter - HA!
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Interesting you have none this year because last weekend mine was covered. I wonder if some particularly good southern winds just sped them further South than they normally get at this time of year, because they've never been early enough to feast on the heptacodium tree here. Usually they wouldn't be here for another two or three weeks. I'm in NE Pa and they started showing up last Saturday and continued to trickle in through Sunday until there were maybe three or four dozen on the tree. Then they disappeared on Monday as the rains of Florence moved through. Now a week later a few more are showing up, but it's closer to a dozen or so at one time so we'll see what this cold front brings. Your tree looks beautiful and the arch really sets off that part of the garden!
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You gotta figure out whether your problem is OE or not. This requires a microscope so you can see whether the butterflies have the OE spores. If it is OE, then you need to start bleaching. If it is not OE, you may never know what the problem is/was. There was two years that all my monarch pillars died. I think it was me using too much MiracleGro on my milkweed but I'll never know for sure. https://butterfly-fun-facts.com/oe-ophryocystis-elektroscirrha-monarch-butterfly/
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@petalique Thank you so much for the poster link. I'm going to try and buy one. My 9yo grandson spotted them. Still have lots of caterpillars on the milkweed. We have an area near the lake that we have left wild for the milkweed.
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?what to do with this little guy?

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