Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Savoring--Butterflies, At Mandarin Gardens and In Our Yard

A couple of weeks ago, my master gardener husband suggested a unique "date" to see the butterflies at the Mandarin Gardens demonstration garden on Jacksonville's south side, his favorite place to volunteer. Because our weather continues to be fairly hot, we opted for a morning visit and then breakfast out afterwards. It was fantastic, just sitting quietly among the flowers and watching the butterflies and other pollinators work their magic. I resisted pulling out the camera for awhile in order to soak it in--then took on the challenge of capturing photos of very active butterflies. I'll keep the photos small, but you can always click on them to enlarge (sometimes a second click will give you an even closer view).
Master gardener that he is, Mark has also developed our yard into a haven for butterflies and hummingbirds, so I will share some photos from our yard as well as from Mandarin Gardens. According to my field guide, the photos taken at Mandarin Gardens show a Gulf Fritillary (orange with just a few black markings--seen on both yellow and lavender flowers) and a Long-tailed Skipper (brownish one on a bright orange flower).
The monarchs are just beginning to grace our yard on their way to Mexico; I took these monarch photos this morning. This one looks like a male because of the black spot on a vein of each hind wing. Although I can't always tell a Monarch from a Viceroy as they fly by, I know the Monarchs have been up north for awhile because the milkweed Mark plants for their caterpillars to eat has grown very tall rather than being stripped down to nothing (the yellow flowering plants shown alone in a photo above--very different from what I called milkweed as a child in Michigan). The black Palamedes Swallowtail photos were also taken in our yard, earlier in the summer.
Question of the day: Aren't butterflies amazing--beautiful and captivating in a special way and also so helpful to plant life?

10 comments:

  1. Friends, I wish I were more adept at formatting my blog posts. No matter what I do with this one, a few words disappear under a photo. Hope you can get the gist of this post--enjoying the photos should not be a problem. :>)

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  2. this must be butterfly taking picture day
    i am seeing they were the subject for many artists
    these are no less lovely!

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  3. no doubt butterflies are amazing! you just reminded me to dig my butterfly photo collections. :)

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  4. That is a wonderful place to go on a date Mary. :)

    This is such a lovely post and from the sounds of it, hubby has done a wonderful job with the garden.

    If I may make a suggestion: load all your photographs so that they are in the centre and then type your text above or below them. I find this much easier and do not have problems with words disappearing. Hope this helps.

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  5. I remember visiting a butterfly house up in Seattle a good 11 years ago or so. I could swear that they said butterflies only live a few days. Must not be so if the monarchs fly south for the winter! And to me? That is indeed amazing! What a thoughtful husband you have!

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  6. How nice to hear from you, Mar & Cher. It is interesting to hear that others are thinking and posting about butterflies. They are appealing to many people.

    Thank you for the blogging tip, Joan. I will give it a try--have always typed the text in first and then loaded the photos, so your method might be just what I need to do. I use one of the standard templates on Google Blogger and don't have a lot of flexibility, but don't want to learn how to format anything more complicated. I appreciate your kind words--it was a lovely date, indeed--and Mark has made our garden truly wonderful.

    Hi Autumn. Now that you mention it, I have also heard that butterflies are very short-lived. I wonder if that is true of some types and not others. I have seen public TV shows about the migration that show the many thousands of monarchs just on one tree in the Mexican forest--it is an amazing sight, even on the screen. Wouldn't it be incredible to see in person? Yes, Mark is a honey; I am fortunate, indeed.

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  7. I love butterflies and these pics are gorgeous!! thanks for sharing!!

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  8. You are welcome, Manon--thank you so much for stopping by.

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  9. a delightful post, Mary!! Yes, butterflies have always captivated me. We have so many varieties here. The Monarchs come through here in mid October on their trek. I wait each year for that! Your photos are fine, and don't worry about blogger, you're doing great! I love to visit your blog!

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  10. Hi Jean. wouldn't it be fun to make a journey that followed the Monarchs for their entire cycle? Your encouragement on my blogging efforts mean a great deal to me. Thank you, thank you. I do work hard to make it interesting, and truly appreciate knowing you enjoy it.

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