Impostor

If you plant a garden in your yard especially to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, you may be visited by a creature that resembles a cross between the two. You’re most likely to take it for a hummingbird at first glance, based on its manner of hovering when extracting nectar from flowers, but closer inspection will reveal the paired antennae that identify it as an insect. The creature is a day-flying moth that goes by several names – clearwing moth or hummingbird moth here in the United States or bee hawk-moth in Europe.

After hatching from tiny eggs laid on the underside of hanging leaves, the small green larvae feed voraciously on viburnum, honeysuckle and related plants. As the caterpillars develop, their round heads and spiky anal horns turn bluish in color. Inconspicuous brown cocoons lay dormant on the ground under a protective layer of leaf litter until it’s time for the adult moths to emerge in search of food. Teasel and honeysuckle are favorite items on the hummingbird moth’s menu, but the species also seems to be attracted to butterfly bush, butterfly weed, trumpet vine, bee balm, joe-pye weed, phlox and other flowering plants that homeowners regularly plant in their garden.

If you are fortunate enough to have a hummingbird moth visit your home garden, be sure to grab your camera. If you approach it slowly and cautiously, you should be able to get close enough for a nice photo of it hovering as it feeds.

For the Birds

Reliable sources of food and water are two essential elements for attracting wildlife to your backyard zoo. Last week’s blog focused on bird baths. This week I’d like to speak about bird feeders. According to wildlife authorities, Americans spend in excess of $2 billion dollars each year feeding birds in their backyards. That’s only a fraction or what we spend each year on pizza, hamburgers or coffee, but I’m willing to bet it’s more than the public spends each year visiting zoos and aquariums across the country.

If you don’t already have a bird feeder hanging outside your window, you don’t know what you’re missing. Hardly a day goes by at my house without our avian neighbors putting on a show, some unexpected visitor showing up or a pesky gray squirrel figuring out how to pilfer a share of the seeds or nuts we provide. Bird feeders come in every imaginable variety, designed to dispense different types of food to different species. The feeder in the photo above is designed to provide small thistle seeds, a favorite food of goldfinches. You can wind up spending a pretty penny on some of the more substantial varieties, but you can also construct them out of common household items at little to no cost. Either way, you’ve given resident and migrant birds a reason to visit your backyard.

If you decide to install a bird feeder in your backyard, I recommend first going to the library or going on-line and doing a little research. There is a wealth of information available regarding where to place feeders, which foods attract which species, and how feeding wild birds affects their behavior and ecology.

Bath Time

No matter how wild your backyard might be, one sure fire way to attract more critters to it is to provide reliable sources of water for them. Wildlife has three basic needs – food, water and shelter – which can be provided at relatively low cost and with minimal effort. Install a birdbath on your property and you’ll be rewarded with an array of avian visitors.

A shallow pan of standing fresh water is all that’s required, whether the container is constructed of stone, ceramic, metal or hard plastic. Stylish birdbaths mounted on decorative pedestals certainly can enhance your backyard wildlife garden. However, robins, blue jays, grackles and other likely bathers aren’t stopping by to admire a homeowner’s art. They come to wash in or drink from the artificial puddle we’ve provided. What’s essential is that the water level not be too deep, the slope not be too steep, and the water be refreshed regularly. It’s also important to place your bird bath in a fairly open location where predators cannot hide and attack the innocent bathers.

Bird baths offer excellent opportunities for amateur nature photographers. Visiting birds quickly become accustomed to someone with a camera sitting nearby and put on a show each time they wade in, dip their wings and splash themselves with water.

Hocus Pocus, Abra Cadabra!

If you’ve located a patch of milkweed plants in your backyard or close to your home, perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to observe a white, yellow and black-striped caterpillar feeding or maybe even a shiny green chrysalis suspended from a leaf or stem. The chrysalis is the pupal stage in this insect’s magical transformation or metamorphosis.

About two weeks after it hatches from its egg and begins feeding, the caterpillar stage of the monarch butterfly reaches its full size and is ready to pupate. It secretes a thin silken thread from its hind end, attaching itself to the plant in an upside down position. Miraculously, the caterpillar’s body morphs into a glistening emerald green capsule that bears no resemblance whatsoever to its former self. It looks more like a hanging pendant.

For 10 days this living jewel hangs immobile from its silken stalk. Then, without any warning, the thin outer wall becomes transparent, allowing us a peek inside. Voila! In a matter of minutes, a beautiful orange-and-black butterfly takes shape before our eyes, dries its wings in the hot summer sun and lifts off into the sky.

Milkweed Munchers

The tall patch of common milkweed in my backyard may be just a bit unusual, since this is a plant more often seen along roadsides or in open fields. I decided to plant milkweed many years ago so that I might pick the leaves and use their poisonous white sap to treat a pesky wart. Native Americans apparently used the plant in this same fashion and I can attest to its effectiveness. Look, mom, no warts!

Certain chemicals in the milkweed’s sap are toxic to many creatures, but not monarch butterfly caterpillars. In fact, milkweed leaves are the only thing they eat! Just before dinner yesterday evening, I watched a female monarch flit from one milkweed leaf to another, depositing a tiny, whitish-yellow egg on the undersurface of each. The eggs will hatch a few days from now, each one yielding a tiny worm-like larva. Almost immediately the new creature will begin munching the leaf on which it was born. Gaping holes lined with milky sap are telltale signs of the caterpillar’s meals.

Milkweed plants aren’t the only ones that butterfly larvae find tasty. As you walk around your yard, take some time to examine the leaves of different plants, shrubs and trees. Check for evidence of hungry insects and maybe you’ll meet some caterpillar neighbors.

Flutterbies!

Of the millions of insect species that inhabit the planet, butterflies are unquestionably among the most pleasing to our senses. We go to great lengths to attract them to our gardens, planting shrubs and flowers that serve as food for both crawling caterpillars and winged adults.

It’s the adults that you and I are most likely to encounter in our backyards as they flutter from flower to flower in search of sugar-rich liquid nourishment. A butterfly’s sensitive antennae help guide it to plants that hold essential nutrients. Special chemical receptors on its legs allow it to taste and a long thin proboscis is used for drinking.

The butterfly in the photo is a common species known as a clouded sulphur, found throughout much of the United States. I came across this one in a weedy patch in my backyard. The female clouded sulphur lays greenish-yellow eggs, one at a time and typically on clover, alfalfa or pea plants. The adult butterflies prefer open habitats like lawns and meadows. Dandelions, asters, marigolds, coneflowers and thistle are among the many plants from which they extract nectar.

If you don’t already own a field guide to our native butterflies, this would be a great addition to your home library. Use it to make a list of the different species that visit your backyard. And while you’re at it, note on which flowers they come to feed.