The butterflies seemed to arrive late this year in my gardens. Thankfully, I spotted this male Monarch gathering the nectar from the blossoms of the Milkweed.
This one was extremely skittish and kept flying off as soon as I got too close to it. It landed on the netting where I got this first photo of him. You can tell it is a male by the two small dots on the lower wings.
This is a patch of Milkweed that I let grow naturally at the back edge of my property. The females will only lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves. When the eggs hatch, if they survive all the various predators, they will feast on the leaves throughout the 4 stages of growth.
Here is the first female that I have seen on the Milkweed. She for some reason is focusing on depositing eggs onto the small pods. This is the first time I have ever seen this action from them. I will have to look very carefully to see if I can find the eggs. I did manage to collect 4 so far off the undersides of the youngest leaves.
I got a little bit too close to her with the camera and just captured her flying off to the Zinna garden.
You can see that she is a female due to the lack of black dots on her lower wings. She looks like she has a lot of worn spots on her wings.
You would never realize that her wings are worn by looking at the undersides while she is gathering the nectar.
Summer is officially in full swing here in western N.Y. and I decided to change my banner to honor the Monarchs that have finally arrived.
I just love having them here during the summer months and can hardly wait to start rearing the caterpillars once the eggs hatch. This is one of my favorite hobbies and brings me such joy watching them throughout the various stages. I will be sure to do a few posts to bring you along on this amazing journey.
Until next time, this is Sunscape
Sun. Scape. Ing Your Day
