syrinx

bob's butterfly cafe...

...sent its application in for Monarch Waystation certification today, complete with glossy photos with circles and arrows and descriptions on the back, (even though it seems all the Monarchs have long since gone to Mexico). But thought I'd post this picture (of a QUEEN butterfly) from September just to commemorate the occasion anyway.

tags: monarch waystation butterfly wildflower mistflower program gregg

On a wing and a selfish gene

This injured veteran stops to refuel at a mealy sage on its long journey back...one tattered wing attesting to the arduous journey across North America towards the disappearing habitat to the south. Will this specimen make it back? God only knows. Will the species survive? As long as they can find a niche in the environment and be the best fit for it through adaptation and natural selection and the process of evolution, they will survive, whether or not there is a God, damn it!

tags: monarch migration 2008

On the way to Mexico

The Monarch migration is in full swing! Went to the Community Center to vote and walk around the xeriscape garden and found out why there are so few butterflies at my little bunch of Gregg's Mistflowers - they have a nice patch of 'em, plus Butterfly Weed, plus other nectar flowers in bloom, and a lot of Queens and Monarchs en masse, especially on the mistflowers. I guess that's what happens when

tags: wildflowers butterflies monarch migration butterflyweed

early snowbird or refugee from Ike?

Summer's not even over yet - give it another day or so - and here's a Monarch on a Gregg's Mistflower in the front yard! But I have heard that there is a population in Houston that is non-migratory (or lazy) and no longer winters in Mexico and summers in North North America, but hangs around Houston all year round. So, unless I start seeing multiple Monarchs floating through in a south easterly direction in the next few days, there's that alternative theory that this one might be a refugee from the coast.

tags: monarch butterfly migration wildflower mistflower

Same monarch, different angle

i like the angle. actually composed the shot in the camera and didn't have to crop it at all. same blue mistflower. found a gulf fritillary caterpillar (2, actually) on the passion flower vine yesterday and will probably post them soon.

tags: wildlife monarch butterfly