We had quite a bit of milkweed in the pasture, and obviously the Monarchs found it. We have small, young Monarchs on the flowers and flitting about the barn lot.
I would like to take credit for the photos, but my husband is the photographer. He downloads the photos, and I size and post. Think of Ansel Adams and a "helper". I do let him know that y'all like his pictures, and he just smiles, grabs his camera, and goes out to see what is interesting.
Meid, I know that your man takes the foto's, but you are the one showing them....you get some credit too.
Very pretty. This is the first year I've had a real garden in the ground. I planted some massively huge marigolds and the monarchs just swarmed them. I just put some asters "New York". They'll be all over them next year.
We don't get Monarchs here - it would be lovely if we did. I've seen a marked decrease in butterflies this year. I just hope their numbers begin to pick up and there'll be a rise next year.
Eileen, from all I've learned is that butterfly populations are cyclical. A couple of good years, then the numbers drop, and then rise again. We've noticed it with swallowtails and hackberries. Last year we had few swallowtails, this year we had to dodge them on the way to the garden! The hackberry butterflies are back in droves, too. By the way, is an abundance of butterflies a "drove" or a "confluence" or just "a bunch"?
A group of butterflies is called a 'Kaleidoscope' but others call it a 'Swarm' or 'Rabble'. I had about three butterflies in my gardens this year....a couple of Cabbage Whites (or it might have been the same one that I saw twice)...and one Swallowtail. My Fennel spent the whole season waiting to be devoured by caterpillars but there were none so the plants died a lonely death in the heat.
Eileen it's funny you saying that but we never see butterflies here hardly with colour only the white ones.
We used to get quite a few different species of butterflies. Now sadly, despite me planting for them, nearly all are in decline. We do still see the white one around but it's the other ones I'd love to see flitter around the garden again.
