Flying Flowers

Butterflies are what I often call flying flowers and I love to just sit and watch them. I have quite a few plants in my yard that attracts them; all planted for that purpose. I used to have a lot more, but some of our severe winters killed them off, and I haven't replaced them.

I see so many different kinds in my yard, fluttering about on gossamer wings. When my grandson Charlie lived with me he would use my phone camera and take photos for me and then download them into my computer. I still have a few of those photos that didn't fry when my old computer died.

Tiger yellow form 

Just this morning I was sitting on my porch and my White Crape Myrtle trees are in full bloom, I watched a beautiful Tiger yellow form swallowtail for about thirty minutes feeding on the nectar of the gorgeous blooms.  

This photo is not my Crape Myrtle, photo is for illustration purpose.  

Longwing Zebra
on a Passion Flower

There was also a Zebra Longwing that kept returning to the white blooms.The Zebra Longwing actually prefers the Passion Vine both as a food (nectar) source and for laying eggs and a food source for their larvae. I don't have any Passion Vine in my yard.

There is a tiny Wren that has built her nest in an old straw hat that I have hanging on the porch, she flies in and out continuously feeding her babies. I see her catching bugs in the Crape Myrtles' to feed them.

My Red Spike Plant

I will try to list a few of the ones I have seen at different times in my yard. The Giant swallowtail I see quite often and when my Red Spike Plant is blooming I have seen as many as eight at one time on it.

Giant swallowtail

Orange Dog

I have orange trees in my back yard and the Giant’s lay their eggs on it and they hatch out, the larvae are called Orange Dogs. So far I have only seen a few Giant's this year. There will be a lot more of them later.

He is not very pretty, but he sure turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Sulpher

Gulf Fritillary

I will list a couple more that I see very frequently and in great numbers. There are so many more and different kinds, I will only show the two directly above and list more later in another writing.

I was sitting here at my computer one day year before last, and I can see out into the yard, I saw this beautiful creature and my heart skipped a beat, I thought am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?

So I jumped up and quickly ran outside and yelled for Charlie. And sure enough it was a Tiger black form swallowtail. I had to rescue it not once, but twice.

Tiger black form swallowtail 

He came out and took this picture and a minute later the butterfly flew up into a spider web, I knew I had to do something quickly before the spider got to it and stung it. 

So I grabbed up a stick from the ground and got it untangled, and it flew again directly into another web on the other side of the huge wild Lantana plant that it was feeding from. 

I hurried around to the other side and rescued it again, it flew up and away, but it never came back and so far it has been the first and only one I have ever seen in my yard.

Garden Spider

The Garden spiders spin webs for the sole purpose of trapping, killing and eating the butterflies, the only way to discourage them without using pesticides is to continually tear their webs down. 

I've spent a lot of time doing that. Pesticides would also kill the butterflies; which would defeat the purpose of having a butterfly garden.