Hi Elisabeth! It's just starting to heat up over here in Germantown. Most of my nectaring plants are just getting going so the poor things are having to really work to get their nectar fix ... I've also had pearl crescents, question mark, red-spotted purple, zebra swallowtail, spicebush, painted lady, sulphurs, easter-tailed blue, spring azures, great-spangled fritallary and hackberry. And lots of luna moths this year, all males so far. But the very, very best was a cedar hairstreak - I was so excited I almost messed in my pants! And of course by the time that I returned with the camera, it was gone. But I sure hope there is a next time!

...I mean the "eggless/cat-less" plants. After posting this, in my urgency to get the cats into some "home," I found a link to a "raising MBs" site, and put them in a tupperware container with a wet paper towel. They seemed to have settled down (when I found them, and took the leaf off, they were all wriggly). So they're on my kitchen table at the moment, and I took some of the plants out of the pile and put them in vases. I don't know how long the MW will last in a vase; hopefully long enough for this project. There are probably 100 or more cats on this leaf. After I found them, and stopped ripping out the MW, I don't know if there's enough for all these cats. I'll probably end up taking them all over the neighborhood trying to find a new stand of MW for them to do their thing on. I don't own a fish-tank or anything to raise them completely. They'll have to go back outside. I feel like a louse.

Well, the eggs are back on my sungold leaves, and there are many, many more of them this time. I've plucked off several of the branches, and with them I think I managed to possibly capture one or two of the bugs, and have put them into a ziplock baggie with a moist paper towel, and will bring them to my local nursery. They thought I was insane for thinking they were psyllids - but also didn't seem to know much about psyllids. Your guess is as good as mine as to how THAT works. :P I've only found the eggs on the edges and undersides of the leaves. Nothing on branches or in the middles, and again, the eggs are so, SO tiny that they almost look like pollen. They are far smaller than aphids. So, I've looked through a bunch of threads here on Gardenweb, and read all the linked articles, most of which I've already read, looking for a way to control the pending infestation, but it seems as though there still isn't much information on how to get rid of these guys. I know I mentioned malathion previously, but have seen an account of Spinosad possibly being effective. Also, many of the posts here, and subsequently, many of the articles that were linked in the posts, are from several years ago, which means that maybe there's some new information available that I haven't uncovered yet, or that maybe someone's had more experience in dealing with these pests. So far all of my plants are looking healthy, but I've been inspecting things almost daily, and this is the first time I've seen the eggs crop up again since my initial post. I was pretty sure I'd destroyed all those eggs, which means that there probably weren't any nymphs to hatch and give my plant the telltale "psyllid yellows" yet, or else I would post some sad plant photos. Has anybody uncovered a solution that will kill off the psyllids without devastating the beneficial population? Are my Sungolds, and likely the other 6 plants sharing a bed, doomed?

I found a cardinal egg on my lawn, it is completely intact and must have fallen out of their nearby nest in my Cherry Laurels. I don't know where the nest is and the laurels are very tall. Should I get a ladder and try to find the nest and put the egg back? (Success unlikely). Should I put the egg in the shade under the laurels? (Successful hatching and survival unlikely I would think) Should I create a makeshift nest and secure it to a branch? Should I try to hatch the little thing myself? (Can't imagine I would be successful). I feel responsible for it since I found it but I guess I should consider it a casualty of nature. Suggestions appreciated ... Thanks!