They taunt me. Every spring, I have these small, white butterflies bobbing through my yard. Sometimes I can see they have orange on the tips of their wings, and sometimes they seem quite plain. I get excited, regardless. These early spring visitors are falcate orangetip (Anthocharis midea) butterflies, and they are very elusive. I swear ...
Read More | Wildlife Gardening JournalIn spring and summer my social media accounts are full of butterfly pictures. Everyone with a garden wants to share shots of their beautiful visitors. Photographing butterflies is one of the few things I do pretty well, and I think I have more than one Facebook friend who hangs around just because of my own ...
Read More | Wildlife Gardening JournalSkippers are the wallflowers of butterfly world. Many people have seen a drab brown or black skipper in their butterfly gardens and assumed they were being visited by a moth in broad daylight, rather than an actual butterfly. But, no, these visitors are butterflies; they just aren’t always recognized as such. Many people mistake skippers ...
Read More | Wildlife Gardening JournalYou might be surprised by some of the plants that serve as host plants for swallowtails. My previous house had a huge, mature lilac in the front yard. Every year in early spring, Eastern tiger swallowtails visited it. Swallowtails are the superstars of butterfly world: Huge, strikingly colored, they always lift my spirits when I ...
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