Lisa, it is a very dry year, both for butterflies and the drought we are in, which I suspect is a main reason for the lack of leps. I've been putting out lots of rotting fruit, so I do have large numbers of Hackberry Emperors, a few Tawnies, and an occasional Red Admiral. Always have Cabbage Whites, lots of Reakirt's Blues and Gray Hairstreaks. Lately, a Wild Indigo Duskywing has been hanging around, but no eggs yet, so I suspect it is a male waiting for a female to show up. I do have some Black Swallowtail cats, but very few compared to other years. I doubt our passion vines will get any action this year. Hopefully, we will get some very soon since the Monarch migration will be under way, and other butterflies will be flying South for the winter. Susan

Here's the UMass information regarding the development of a natural predator for Winter Moth. "Cyzenis albicans is a Tachinid fly that parasitizes winter moth; in fact, winter moth is the only insect that it attacks. This important parasitoid was introduced into Nova Scotia through the 1950âÂÂs for winter moth and is now the controlling factor for this serious pest. It was also released in the western United States for winter moth there and showed great success. Cyzenis has now been brought to Massachusetts and a small initial release was performed in May of 2005 in Plymouth County. Following the 2005 release, Cyzenis albicans was released in increasing numbers each year in the following Massachusetts towns: Wenham, MA (2006); Falmouth, MA (2007), Wellesley, Seekonk and Barnstable in 2008 and again in Wellesley in 2009. Several years of releases will be necessary before any measurable effects are seen. The number of release sites is limited each year to carefully selected locations and at least 1000 flies are released at each site to maximize the chance of successful establishment. Production of flies for release has been augmented by the development of mass rearing techniques in the laboratory for both the fly and its winter moth host. We have also increased our Cyzenis collection efforts in British Columbia. This work is being performed by Dr. Joseph ElkintonâÂÂs lab group at UMass, Amherst. It is made possible thanks to funding from the USDA Forest Service, USDA, APHIS, the Mass. Dept of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts State Legislature." Steve Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Moth overview - UMass

I had started another thread earlier this season about getting rid of these. Last two years, they had attacked my trees and most were defoliated. The cherry tree put out another set of leaves after the fist was gone and the caterpillars had pupated by then, but the second set was not as big/plentiful as the first one. So this year I decided to take action. After reading around and help from forum members, I decided that spinosad (the one I used was - Captain Jack's deadbug brew) was the golden mean between being effective and least side effects. I watched under the tree in first few weeks of April before the trees bloom to see when the eggs hatch. When the eggs hatch .. you will see very nice small blue eggs in the ground under the tree. Then the tiny caterpillars go to the bud and go inside it, After the bud opens, they come out and start munching on leaves when the leaves pop out. I sprayed the tree when bloom was gone and I could see holes in the leaves. (wet spinosad is toxic to bees, after the bloom was gone, bees did not go to the cherry tree). After a few days, I still saw some more new leaves being eaten, so I sprayed again. Since then I haven't seen any more evidence of caterpillar on that tree and the tree looks beautiful. So I assume that first spraying got more than 50% and second took care of all the remaining. Here is a link from UM-Amherst that has good information

I just noticed tiny caterpillars inside the buds of my Japanese Maple! Can I spray spinosad (Captain Jacks Deadbug) directly on the buds?