Meet the Yellow Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly we get here every year in our garden!
This is probably the biggest butterfly we have here in our garden? This series of photographs of this butterfly was taken in May 12 of 2014 as the Lilacs were in bloom.
I believe these Swallowtails emerge as butterflies in or near our garden. I believe it is these butterfly cocoons I have noticed way up in the tall tree's that grow near us? As you can see this one Swallowtail is in perfect shape. No birds, or cats have gotten to this one!
The butterflies of all kinds like the Lilacs when they go to bloom, and even when the Lilacs are not in bloom! The Lilacs attract many things to them, when the Lilacs bloom, even more so!
Early in the Morning my routine everyday to water. I also spray down the Lilacs which do attract such things as the butterflies to get drinks as well as when the Lilacs bloom supplying the creatures with food, a place to hide, nesting material for the birds. We have had peoples cats hide in our Lilacs and even had someones chicken hide in our Lilacs haha! Actually the chicken fell asleep and I could not figure out what in the world was in my Lilacs haha!
We do grow many Lilacs and use them as the privacy, "fence". When the Lilacs bloom oh wow the scent even comes inside the house! We had one lady tell us she could smell the Lilac blooms at her home!
I am fond of the all the visitors here to the garden. These Swallowtail are one of the flashier visitors! Some years we have dozens of these Swallowtails here! It kind of gets crazy for they are flying here and there and stopping here and there!
Oh boy do these Tiger Swallowtail also like the Sweet William flowers!! Actually gosh, the swallowtails like most things we choose to grow and come back year after year! Since we do not spray any chemicals, I typically do not allow cutting my flowers so such things as the Butterflies have plenty here to choose from!
Other then the spray that other folks use to kill insects, (butterflies are insects), the birds are one of the predators and peoples cats do a lot of damage to such things as the Swallowtail Butterflies.
Attracting such things as the Swallowtail Butterflies to your flower beds is not real hard! Just plant the flowers they like! Lilacs, lupine, foxglove, Lilies,Sweet williams,roses, mmmmmm gosh the Swallowtails come to almost everything we grow here, the list of plants we grow here goes on and on!
Remember to give the Butterflies of all kinds a safe place to drink!! We have many birds here, can not express to you how many birds we get here!! The bird area is the same place we have made for such things as the Butterflies to get drinks. So far everyone has lived in harmony. If you have cats..... cats will harm and even kill such things as butterflies without a second thought!! Keep this in mind if you are going to plant flowers to attract the butterflies. It is not really fair to attract such a thing as Butterflies to the garden if they are just going to get killed by your cat. We have a cat, and he has to follow the rules just like the dogs do, or the cat just like the dogs - gets in trouble.
Just like most of the other visitors here to the garden, they get used to my routine. Everyday I try and do the same things for the critters get to know my routine. The visitors are more at ease when they learn your routine, photographs then are nothing out of the normal.
Thank you for coming by and checking out this series of photographs I got of this Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly feeding on the Lilac flowers! Lilacs are super easy to grow! Most everyone sales them, if you do not know someone you could dig up a baby from! We just have the purple Lilacs at this time, though there are more colors of Lilacs and I really can not say how the other colors attract visitors?
No comments:
Post a Comment