Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

In my backyard I have a single pot of Purple Passionflower - Passiflora incarnata, and every year it host the caterpillars of many Gulf Fritillary Butterflies.  I constantly see the butterflies around my garden throughout the warm months and often times they lay so many eggs on my passionflower that it becomes defoliated. 

Gulf Fritillary egg on the dried tendril of the Passionflower.

Gulf Fritillary caterpillar in search of more food.

This one has munched away all these leaves...

My Passionflower - Passiflora incarnata, it has a few leaves left. 

Gulf Fritillary empty chrysalis with an egg on it. (3 eggs in the pic total)

Another chrysalis about 20 feet away from the Passionflower.

Here is the mother Gulf Fritillary laying more eggs.

I love the silver on the bottom of the wings!

Bluebonnets are Blooming

Bluebonnets - Lupinus texensis are blooming in my backyard garden.   A few years ago I bought a packet of bluebonnet seeds and planted them.  Only a few grew but each year more and more grow from the seeds of the parent plants.  This year there seems to be twice as many as last year and they are growing great with the rain we've had this spring in Houston.

Bluebonnet - Lupinus texensis , one of the five species of Bluebonnets native to Texas.

All of the native Texas species of Bluebonnet are considered the state flower.

Grey Hairstreak Butterfly - Strymon melinus, a few of these were feeding from the flowers.

Honeybee - Apis sp. was also seen feeding on the Bluebonnet nectar. 

If you live in Texas this is a must have plant for your yard!  It requires no care and provides your garden with beautiful spring time color.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!   I hope this year brings you lots of good health, luck, and happiness!

What better sign to welcome the New Year than a newly hatched butterfly...

I found this Monarch butterfly - Danaus plexippus in my front yard garden.  There have been a lot of caterpillars this winter that have completely defoliated my Milkweed (I did plant them for the Monarchs).  I have also had a few Gulf Fritillaries - Agraulis vanillae hatching from their chrysalises in my backyard close to where my Passionflower grows.

Cloudless Sulphur - Caterpillar and Chrysalis

A few years ago I bought a Candlestick Bush - Senna alata, from the Houston Museum of Natural Science plant sale. This plant as well as other Senna are host plants for the Cloudless Sulphur - Phoebis sennae, a beautiful neon yellow species of butterfly. My Senna grew pretty large (too big for my balcony) so I gave it to my parents who have plenty of space for it. The Senna thrived and has been the food plant for many Cloudless Sulphur caterpillars.

The caterpillars seem to prefer the flowers and small seed pods.

This one is quite big. Its munching on one of the seedpods now.

Can you see the chrysalis? It is hanging from the stem and looks just like a leaf.

Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar

Look what I found on my potted Lime tree this morning!

Its not a huge bird dropping!! Its a Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) caterpillar! I think it had just found its way from one of the neighboring Citrus trees because not a leaf had been nibbled on my tree and it is in its last molt before it becomes a chrysalis. That would be pretty amazing because the other Citrus trees are in my neighbors yards (closest one being about 30ft away. No worries though, Im going to allow this caterpillar to eat as much as it likes on my lime before it becomes a chrysalis (hopefully on the lime tree itself). :)