In my last post I talked a little about my new butterfly milkweed plant and its magnetic qualities. Once its flowers opened on June 3rd, I began to see butterflies on it. On June 5th, two great spangled fritillaries came to feed several times:
Great spangled fritillaries on June 5, 2018 [Photo: Cathie Bird]
The next day I saw as many as four fritillaries and a crescent butterfly on it throughout the day. In the photo below are three fritillaries and the pearl crescent:
Great spangled fritillaries and a pearl crescent on June 6, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
They are so focused on feeding that they remained at the flower even when my dog or cat walked by. I easily got a close up of this single fritillary:
Great spangled fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on June 6, 2018 [Photo: Cathie Bird]
The butterflies seem mesmerized by the milkweed, and I'm definitely mesmerized by the butterflies. Here a video of them:
Of course, where butterflies and other insects gather, there, too, may be dragonflies such as this pair of common whitetails. I see them hunting together almost every day:
Common whitetail (Plathemus lydia) female on June 6, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Common whitetail dragonfly (Plathemus lydia) male on June 6, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Among the amphibian visitors to my planters are two skink species -- the eastern 5-lined skink and the broadheaded skink. Recently I got short video clips of each while I was recording activity of the butterflies and dragonflies:
Even with all of this happening, the story of life around my planter garden continued to unfold with the return -- exactly a month later -- of the Carolina wrens that fledged on May 6th. I'll share what the holler wrens are up to in my next post.
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