Connie, in the books I've got with pictures that identify male and female red-spotted purples, the only difference is their size - females are bigger. I've raised a lot of them, so I know what their average size looks like, and when I get one that looks very small, I'm pretty sure it's a male, and when one is very big, I'm pretty sure it's a female. Looking at your picture, I have no idea how big the butterfly was. I frequently can't tell whether an individual is on the big side or small size myself just seeing them in flight outside. Sherry

The plants were purchased from the government so we are fairly sure they are Red Pine. Â Yep, Red Pine 1) Is it normal to take so long for male cones to show. Â I'd say that's a bit slower than one might expect, though the forest habitat (more shade from competing plants) will slow down production compared to single specimens in full all-round sunlight 2) The red parts seem larger than any other picture on the web. Is this because they are more mature and elongated at the time the picture was taken? They also seem redder than any picture I can find. Â Yep, they're mature and shedding pollen. Rather surprising for them to be shedding as early as 5 March though (or is it stupid US date citations?) 3) Is it unusual to have all of the trees produce male cones the same year? You would think that they would all start in different years. last year was a very cool summer here. Â No, normal; generally, all trees of a particular species in a particular area will cone in the same year, as they'll all be triggered into coning by the same weather factor. Over here, even a fairly short warm sunny spell can trigger a good crop, if it is at the critical right time (end of May or early June seems to work for a lot of species) even if the rest of the summer is cool. Resin

i don't discriminate and feed everything that show up. but was a bit mad last couple days as i had set out a variety of tomato planted in pots that i had grown and nurtured in the house by a picture window. was already getting some cherry tomatos from one and set them out the other night. and a big doe and yearling showed up and ate the cherry tomatos and stripped the leaves from the plant. So i set out some replacement plants early this morning and 4 deer showed up not long after and pulled up and ate two of the plants.

i was lucky last winter to have a flock of about a dozen red crosbills come to my feeders for a few weeks they usually look for pine or pinyon nuts but feasted daily on black oil sunflower seeds daily till they moved on.