I was getting worried…very worried.
Those of you who follow me know that I’m a bit of a Monarch butterfly freak. I raise milkweed, their sole food source, and distribute the seeds both by myself and via seed packets I give away.
I’d like to say it was helping, as last year we had more Monarch butterflies than usual, spotting some every few days at least, and I spotted one laying eggs and successfully raised one to adulthood – fascinating and rewarding to say the least.
This year? Zip, zilch, nada – not a single visitor – until yesterday. Two separate sightings, with possibly two the first time (hard to say, they do move quickly). Whew, some at last.
And today? Even better, because I saw a lady Monarch laying eggs again!! This time it wasn’t on our milkweed patch in the back garden (which are doing very well and are loaded with seed pods already) but instead on a tiny seedling butterfly weed growing in the neighbor’s lawn just a few feet from our flower bed. I quickly grabbed the little seedling and brought it inside into the rearing cage I made last year, then went out and found three more on five different seedlings!
Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, is part of the milkweed family and monarchs can use them as a food source but they’re not as preferred as common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, in that they don’t impart as much toxin from the host plant to deter predators. I know they can use the milkweed, though: one year we had five caterpillars on one plant!
Here’s the little lady right before she laid her eggs:
This feels awesome on several levels. Of course, the primary joy will be seeing them grow and hopefully fly away to take part in the great migration to Mexico this fall, but it is even better knowing that these are rescues: the neighbor’s lawn service would have wiped them out in a day or two during their weekly mowing operation.
If all four eggs hatch I’m going to be busy with provisioning them with leaves, so it is fortunate I’ve got a good supply.
UPDATE
This afternoon I went to pick up our mail and notice another of those small butterfly weeds growing on the edge of the neighbor’s yard. What the heck, let me check: sure enough, there’s an egg! That little lady was definitely busy this morning, and I now have 5 eggs to hopefully nurture though to healthy adults!
Oh, and another sighting in the backyard milkweed patch, more egg laying behavior, so I’m going to need to monitor there for little tykes as well.
