D.O.P.-T. (yesterday)

[weofodthignen]

I'm seeing more butterflies now. Not so many of the cabbage whites and the similar-sized yellow ones, but tiny ones, a quarter that size: the orange ones with black speckles one of which was kind enough to try to help me go out with elegance in the ljshootout photo contest, and yesterday a black one with lacy white markings. One of the few things the neighbor lets live is her buddleia, so I imagine she has more, but I still don't quite understand the Sunnyvale Sun editorial a month ago saying there are no more butterflies or songbirds. I think the writer must now live in San Jose.

Comments

[mdehners]

While not up to my usuual numbers, I have a lot of butterflies in my yard as well. I've made it a point to grow nurse plants for both the Gulf Fitillary(a sort of dimestore Monarch)and a Sulfur. In Oct there'll be folks driving their kids by to see them as the hatch out of their coccoons and get ready to migrate to Mexico...
Cheers,
Pat

[weofodthignen]

I'm glad they finally turned up. You were afraid they wouldn't.

M

[mdehners]

Like a lot of our "critters", they Winter in Mexico and S. Texas. When folks there wreck land, that means the critters either don't have enough to eat or are actually killed off. It also goes for many that fly North and get killed off by the Ag and developement processes in the Southern and Coastal states. I know something BAD happened because normally there isn't a singe Passsionflower leaf in the yrd and right now most haven't even been nibbled....
Truth,
Pat