These days I go to my terrace garden only around midday as the haze and the chill in the mornings is pretty heavy. I wait for the sun to show up victoriously after its battle with the haze in the mornings. I find that there are a lot of creatures who think like me. There are a number of butterflies who show up around midday. This beauty was one of those.
There aren't too many bees in my garden these days, nor do I find the sunbirds singing here as much as they did in summer. That maybe because the Chinese hat plant has been pruned heavily and there are no blooms now. I had to remove the yellow alamanda because it tried to get into the window of my not so friendly neighbor next door. Nonetheless, there is no dearth of butterflies in my garden at this time of the year. The red pierrots are always there. They love my kalanchoe and we have an on going battle, I trying to save my plants from them and the red pierrots try to multiply their progeny. We have a love hate relationship where love always wins.
The hebomoia glaucippe or the great orange tip is rarely seen in my garden. When it has showed up a few times in the past I have hardly been able to photograph it as it doesn't settle on any plant or flower for a long time. This time there were two, both busy trying to find some safe place to enlarge their family with their act of love.
One kept coming back to the orange bougainvillea which was a few feet away from me, in the midst of my thorny jungle. All I had was my phone in my pocket and I did grab a couple of images today. These are medium sized butterflies white with deep orange and black in the forewing tip. The underside of one looked quite like it had taken a beating. However, the more I read about these great orange tips I figured out that it is their natural marking, they resemble a dead leaf when they close up their wings, a great camouflage in the wild.
There were other blue and green swallow tails hanging around, but once gain refusing to pose for a photograph. The white and yellow cabbage butterflies often fly from under the bushes when I am pottering near them or when I spray the plants with water. Every time they seem as surprised as I am and this happens.
Then there are the grasshoppers, today I found this brown guy jumping all around the garden.
Then there was this lonely wing floating in the small puddle of water. I do see a lot of dead butterflies around these days. Sad as it is, this is the truth of life.
Look at what these buggers have done to my rain lilies. Sometimes I just let then do their thing.
Thanks for hanging out with me in my garden chasing after the butterflies. Have a great day!
