Great to hear your area is flourishing. Many others states and counties are flourishing as well. Unfortunately I have had a lack thereof *scratching my head*

Well, we have had a couple of decent freezes here, 29 degrees. I thought that was it, but yesterday I saw a painted lady and today a couple orange sulphurs. I have a lot pipevine chrysalises, black swallowtails, one W.I.D. larva, cercropia and polyphemus cocoons, and a few zebra chrysalises. I think I am glad for the break! I really have to work on my garden this year. I spent so much time at the arboretum that my yard really suffered.

Cheers,
Elisabeth

There is next to nuthin' going on here in cold zone 5/6. I've seen one butterfly in the past week on a warm afternoon about 65 degrees F, and I think it was a Mourning cloak. Large and dark. I've seen a few moths, but it's too cold for much else as far as Lepditoptera go. Time to shift to bird-watching and fooling around with seeds for winter-sowing. The Juncos and White-throat sparrows are arriving from their winter breeding grounds. The Bluebirds come to the Suet log every day, now that there is much less insect activity, and they are as captivating as the Butterflies.

We had the same mid-30's lows and then when it warmed, more Gulf Frits and Buckeyes than I'd seen all summer, plus an American Painted Lady or two, Yellow Sulphurs and Dogface Sulphurs.

They are enjoying mostly lantanas, while I'm making plans for more lantana (l. montevidensis & l. camara) everywhere next year.
I've taken cuttings of pentas and porterweed.
{{gwi:547104}}From Greenhouse Pentas

We're leaving wild areas where native host plants grow, untouched.

Looking back, Tithonia was a hit for a while, zinnias are always popular nectar plants for a time; lilies, crocosmia and azaleas in their prime times, but Porterweed and Lantana are top plants here for the longest span of time. Between when azaleas bloom and summer flowers start, when nectar is scarce, Sweet William dianthus as well as cheddar pinks fill in a vacancy. Anything shaped like a daisy (echinacea, shastas, blanketflower, asters) will be a hit at some time or other.

I don't do indoor babies -- I couldn't do it well, so I won't start messing with what goes on in the wild.
Best luck to all who have that kind of patience and expertise.

Nell

Yes, heavy bird feeding time is just around the corner, terrene. I feed sunflower seed to jillions of birds every winter, mainly goldfinches, but with good numbers of cardinals, titmice, chickadees, chipping sparrows, white-throated sparrows, juncos, and the other seed eaters that pass through here during the migrations.
My garden is weedy and pitiful looking, too, Elisabeth. I've been doing a little work outside each day, mainly planting trees, but I'll be pulling garden weeds soon.
I made this picture of a gulf frit nectaring on some coral porterweed -
{{gwi:547105}}
Sherry

Nell, I've still got a lot of flowers in bloom, too, like pentas, lantana, porterweed, Mexican flame vine, turk's cap, and Christmas cassias, plus there are JILLIONS of wildflowers in bloom, too numerous to name, but they're all the normal fall bloomers. My oranges have started to ripen since the cold weather started. We don't usually have weather this cold so soon, so I'm thinking we may be going to have a cold winter, but who really knows?
Sherry

Boy, I just reread my post and really mangled the spelling of "Lepidoptera". Also meant to say "summer breeding grounds".

This thread makes me jealous of you folks living in warmer zones. The Butterfly season is very short here.

Foxesearch - by indoor babies do you mean raising butterflies indoors? Let me just say that this summer was the first time I raised butterflies, and they were a whole lot easier to take care of than my 15 year old son or the 2 cats! I even make the birds a home-made suet mixture year round which is more trouble.

If I had any kind of a conscience I'd feel guilty about living in Central Florida and having butterflies pretty much year round. We did have a few very cold days last week and it cut down on the number of butterflies. Today I saw Monarchs, two or three kinds of skippers, Gulf Fritilaries, and a bunch of Polydamas. Didn't see any sulphurs which is rare; they should be back tomorrow when it gets warmer. Also only saw one or two Zebra Longwings; they really like the warm weather.

I have seen quite a few Pipevines this year, but not so many Tiger Swallowtails. The Giant Swallowtails have been more abundant--but not this week.

The nights have been cool and the days mild to warm, so the butterflies have been in abundance! This morning I was going out to my car and a Red Admiral landed on my sleeve and stayed there for several seconds! First time that has happened outside with a "wild" butterfly! Have had that happen with ones I was releasing, but not a wild one before.

Lots of polydamas cats on my pipevine (a. elegans), lots of sulphurs, monarchs, gulf frits, skippers, american ladies and now red admirals.

Went to the nursery to take advantage of the 70% off sales and saw tons of butterflies! Made it easy to pick nectar plants!

Mechelle

After three consecutive nights with hard freezes, all the flowers are gone from my garden. I thought butterfly season was over here in east-central Alabama, but I saw a Gulf Fritillary and a Cloudless Sulphur on Thursday and a Cloudless Sulphur on Friday.

The lantana, orange cosmos and Mexican sunflowers bloomed right up until the first freeze, but they are all wilted and sad looking now. Fennel, parsley and, strangely, milkweed (A. tuberosa) still look fine. I've been watching two passionfruits as they matured so I could collect the seeds, but I don't think they'll make it now.

I had put off garden maintenance, knowing I'd have a big job once the cold killed everything, so now the time has come to clean up and start over.

geni

Hi,

I read that Miss Sherry is overwintering chrysalides in an unheated guest room. I am a newbie and this is my first time overwintering chrysalids. I have an unheated den and would like to know if I can overwinter my GF and BST Chrysalids in that room?

Thanks,

Betty

You can, Betty, and the BSTs will emerge next spring - I put their cages on the front porch around ?early March, and as the temps rise, they start to emerge. Unfortunately, my gulf frit chrysalids always turn black and die. The only way I've ever seen GFs successfully overwinter is in the caterpillar stage of all things! One mild winter 3 or 4 of them stayed alive on p. caerulea all winter - when it started making new growth, which I think was late Feb., the cats started eating again. Before they got to pupation size, I brought them into a cage, where they pupated and emerged in early spring. That was the earliest in the year I've ever had gulf frits!
Sherry

Thanks Miss Sherry,

I guess there is little hope for my GF chrysalids--I have 5 and 4 are still cats. Well, at least there is some hope for my 2 BST. I will put them in my den now, as they are on my carport.

Thanks again for all of your help on this forum for me as a newbie. I am going to overwinter my Passion Flower vines under lights.

Betty

This has been "the worst of years and the best of years", or should that be the other way around?, for most of the butterflies that usually frequent these areas and particularly for the Western Tigers, Anise Swallowtails, Pipevine Swallowtails and I have seen more sulphurs than ever before in the yard. But I think that may all be over now as the rains have begun. I still have a lot of blooming plants like the buddleias and the lantanas but probably not for long.

I am already planning for next year mentally. I have some new ideas for a strip of yard that runs along the road by my house. I have left it completely untouched all these years because I didn't know what to do with it. But after seeing so many sulphurs and tiny butterflies like the hairstreaks I am going to add plants specifically for them.

Unfortunately, this has been the worst year so far for monarchs. Last spring was very bad and this fall I have had one or two a day for quite awhile but have not found a single egg or cat out there that I can see on the plants that are accessible. Many are just too difficult to get to because of the density of flora out there. I like to keep the growth as dense as I do partly because of the size of my yard and partly for the protection of the cats themselves even though it means that I can't access plants like the milkweed. But normally in years past I would find eggs and fully or partially developed larva on even the milkweed on the edges of the yard. I have been meaning to ask CASherry if her cats and eggs are all from the migration or if she had some that she reared on her own because we are both probably on the same migratory path. At least I believe so anyway. I will have to check with her. I don't want to believe that the numbers are just that low around here. Murray

As Tom said, we had a couple cold nights and I guess that just about did it for some of the species for this season. I was out in the garden today, saw a few GF's and saw one Sulphur flying above me, saw some Blues's and some Longtail Skippers. Found ZLW eggs and some Polydamas cats and eggs but no butterflies of either type. I didn't see a Monarch, which is funny as they have been more numerous the last couple of weeks. As for Eastern Blacks, Spicebush, and Giants, they have been gone for a while.

This has been another unusual year. I guess since most are unusual, then they are really usual. Does that make sense? I only raised and released a couple ZLWs. This is from someone who average a dozen a day for several months the last few seasons. They would get to normal size, make a chrysalis then turn black and mushy. I thought it was my plant but ended up getting eggs, cats and food from a friend and the same thing happened. Tried keeping them inside in my non-air conditioned room that I have used for a long time successfully, tried outside on the porch, cleaned all my enclosures, etc. Just stumped me.

On the other hand, I raised more Giant Swallowtails then ever before (still have two in chrysalis) and many Spicebush. Polys were late to show up but the numbers were greater than the past few years once they did. I did find a few larger, later instar Pipevine that were surviving on my Calico Pipevine. Oh, and my Candlestick Cassia was very popular with the Sulphurs of all kinds this year.

But I guess the season will soon come to a close except for the GFs and Monarchs. They show up on warm days throughout the winter. Hopefully the flowers will keep blooming and provide the nectar they need.

Miss Sherry - you said your Christmas Cassia is blooming. Mine isn't yet but I do have a Pride of Burma that is.

I am still seeing a few BFs. A new one appeared in my yard today. This one really excited me, as it's a county record--only two have been reported in Oklahoma.

{{gwi:547106}}

Other BFs that I am seeing include Painted Ladies, Common Checkered Whites, Dainty Sulfurs, Orange Sulfurs, Cloudless Sulfurs, Little Yellows, Sachems, Fieries, Eufalas, Clouded Skippers, and a lone Gulf Fritillary yesterday. I have very little nectar since temps dropped down to 24 degrees here earlier in the week. Overall, it's been another good year for BFs. There have been some missing, but some new ones have come through.

Sandy

I'm not good at differentiating the sulphurs, Sandy - is it an orange barred sulphur? Whatever, it's gorgeous, and I'm sure glad you got a record!
That's too bad about the zebra longwings, Mary. It sort of sounds like a disease - if it is, I hope it doesn't spread!
Geni, I'm glad you're back in the 'Heart of Dixie' - did you get my e-mail?
I love your cottage garden, Murray, so whatever you do with it in the future will be great!
I saw the first red admiral today that I've seen in quite a while. That's typical, though, since they spend the winter here, sort of like some birds. :)
Sherry

Sorry Sherry, I was so excited with my find. Yes, it's an Orange Barred Sulfur female.

Sandy

Nice find, Sandy!

A week ago, I was ready to say "No butterflies left." But we had a warm day yesterday, and we saw an orange sulfur and a darkly-marked Common Checkered Skipper.

Jeff

Well hot dang! I saw the first question mark today that I've seen all year! I hope that bodes well for next year, since 2008 is the first year I haven't raised any.
Interestingly, I saw this one in the same area where I saw my first red admiral of the fall - I regularly see my overwintering butterflies in this spot. Sunlight shines on this area in the late afternoon, while the sites all around it are shaded, and it's at the base of the incline that leads to the bottom of the hollow where it's protected from winter winds, so I'm assuming that's why this is a favored spot.
Sherry

I'm in North Texas & today I saw 4 Monarchs, 3 Queens, 2 very tattered PSTs, a GST, a white, several kinds of sulphurs including a Dogface, a Pearl Crescent, one of the Hairstreaks, an American Snout, & at least 4 Painted Ladies. I still have lots of Gulf Frit cats chomping away at my smaller Blue passionvine & saw at least 2 adults today, also. We have had one frost last week but it looks like it will be warm for the next 10 days or so.
I had a very sparse summer for butterflies but the fall has been much more abundant!!!

I've been SUPER busy with school yet, I've been releasing Monarchs fairly regularly lately. I had six males and a female go off into the fair blue sky yesterday and ten the day before...then, this past weekend, on the collecting end, I found a number of Gulf Frit larvae and even a number of Cabbage White eggs and a later instar larva! I haven't spotted any Monarch eggs though I did see seven Monarch larvae in stages 3 through 5 which I left outdoors.

Don't you just love butterflies? So do I. Here is South Florida I am seeing a lot of Zebra longwings though, don't know for how long since it has been cold. The Polydamas are getting fewer each day, Queens, sulfers and, black swallowtails are very abundant right now. I usually have at least a dozen butterflies in my garden at a time. Let's not forget about the skippers too! I am anxiously waiting for the Monarchs. Haven't seen any yet this winter. They usually stop by on their way to Mexico.

I raised butterflies for about 3 years until I started working. I still raise the hosting plants along with, plenty of nectar plants. I really miss the butterfly gardening. It was an exciting hobby. I really need to get back into it but, my cage disintegrated after 3 years so I need to get another one.

I am fairly new to this forum but, will be watching as I find it so interesting. It helps to fullfill my passions of raising butterflies.

Welcome Giftstogo,

Glad to see a new forum member. It's also good to hear that someone is seeing BFs. They are pretty much gone here in middle America. I've seen one Little Yellow this week and a few hardy Sachems.

Butterflying is a wonderful hobby with such a great return. Look forward to seeing more posts from you.

Sandy

Welcome gifts2go! South Florida sounds like a good place to be this time of year!
I've only been seeing cloudless sulphurs and gulf frits for the last several days, but since we're supposed to have another freeze tonight, this one a little colder than the first, the gulf frits may go. We're having winter weather here much earlier than normal - usually we don't get a freeze until well into December.
Sherry

The only butterfly I have around right now is a Sulphur caterpillar (Colias sp. that eats legumes) that is overwintering on our patio. I spent three hours or so a couple weeks ago making an enclosure for it. I'd post pictures of it, but ImageShack isn't responding right now.
-Jmcat

It warmed up quite a bit today, and I saw a sleepy orange flitting by. There are still a lot of gulf frit cats on the vines, and I saw this turbulent phosphila (moth) caterpillar climbing on the fence - it's probably taking the hike to make its cocoon.
{{gwi:547107}}
Sherry