Was your area sprayed for Gypsy Moths? The Gypsy Moth spray BT will kill any moth or butterfly caterpillar that eats it, so it could easily make a large dent in the local butterfly population. The spraying should have taken place in early summer - it was May around here - so by now I'd expect a few butterflies to be around. They can either fly into your area from somewhere that wasn't sprayed, or later-emerging caterpillars would have escaped the spray.

Many areas near my home were sprayed with Bt for Gypsy Moths, but not here on my street, and I have what seem to be the normal number of butterflies this summer.

pinwheel - I've been wondering where they are as well. Where are you in the county?

.....others are wondering -

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterflies forum

butterfies arrived here (NE Berks) right on time - as soon as the butterfly bushes start blooming. also lots of bees and happily a lot fewer japanese beetles than last year.

They are all in my garden now.
I have 2 butterfly bushes.
I love them, I see many butterflies every morning.
I haven't seen the big fancy butterflies yet though.

Hi Paula,

I'm in East Goshen, outside of West Chester. I've seen one skipper, but no swallowtails. I usually don't see monarchs until August, but I've had *no* swallowtails so far.

Today I saw one black swallowtail traveling through. Yay!

Hi pinwheel - I'm over in West Bradford. Nice picture!

I've seen a few monarchs around the property now and then, but still no cats. No chewn asclepias foliage. By this time last year I had some cats in the house developing. A few swallowtails around too, tiger and black. Maybe I need to wait longer...

Hello. I am in Lower Merion. I have had some beautiful butterflies in my garden for a week or so. I wish I knew how to identify them. I don't recall seeing any as pretty as these in a number of years.

I have not had much in the way of hummers, though. I used to have some that came regularly but I only saw one a couple of times in spring and none since. I miss them.

I've had monarchs, swallowtails here. My garden contains Asclepias curassavica, tuberosa, syriaca so enough host plants to attract monarchs. I've seen other butterflies but don't know their names.
I'm in Broomall.

I have no idea what the species are called, but I've seen white butterflies and yellow/orange (perhaps a monarch) butterflies. Typically, I see them around some of my flowering potted plants and tall garden plants (i.e. lilies, etc.).

Sarah

Activity is increasing since my Tithonia rotunifolia I started from seed has started blooming. I haven't grown Tith for years, I forgot what a magnet it is for the butterflies. Still no monarch cats to be found....

{{gwi:1110519}}

Updating.... I have found only 5 monarch cats...only 1 of them from my garden. The others were on the wild milkweed along the road in front of my house. I just talked to another butterfly enthusiast, Jane Kirkland of Take A Walk books, and she's found similar circumstances from Scotland and other parts of the world.

For people reading who hate bugs...guess what? You got rid of the bugs, with all your pesticides, and now look what we have...no bugs. (Side rant)

Odd, the abundance of Monarchs in some places and disappearance of them in others. I have seen more M. cats this year than in the last 10 years put together. About 2 1/2 weeeks ago, I counted 22 cats in a patch of butterfly weed about 3' x 4'. At that time an adult Monarch was still busily depositing eggs all over the patch. As of today, I can account for 8 chrysalis around the area of the patch. These should all eclose in the next 2 to 4 days if all is well.