Three years ago I started some milkweed in one of our garden beds hoping to provide some help for the beleaguered monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. I ended up with half a dozen plants but no little critters, even though I witnessed my first courtship dance by a pair of those caramel-colored beauties. (I won’t post a picture of their mating out of respect for their privacy 😉 Last year the patch had expanded to 20+plants — again, no action — but this year it has swelled to well over 200 plants in a 20ft x 4ft raised bed. Some of these are more than six feet tall! When blooming the first two weeks of June the aroma was intoxicating, wafting over half of the yard during any gentle evening breezes.
Then came the lucky break last Wednesday: a Monarch flitting among the plants! I was pretty sure it was a female (a dark spot on the hind wings) and sure enough she kept resting on plants and curling her abdomen under the leaves. I noted where she had stopped, waited for her to complete her task and fly off and with a very careful search I found one of her eggs!
To say they are tiny is an understatement. They’re a bit smaller than half a grain of rice. Given that size I doubt I’ll be able to keep tabs on the caterpillars (hopefully plural is correct for this patch) until they get quite a bit bigger but I’m hopeful!
I’ve been encouraged by seeing many more of these gorgeous butterflies the last few years, with half a dozen sightings so far this year. Another encouraging bit: I made up small packets of seeds with an instruction leaflet and left them out on the break tables at work, and they were all gone in less than two hours. More people interested in helping out these fabulous creatures!
This one is feeding on butterfly weed, another plant in the milkweed family and is used as a food source but likely common milkweed is preferred by them.
More information on monarchs can be found on Wikipedia. Monarch Butterfly USA and MonarchWatch.org.
The butterfly weed seen in the above image is a delightful presence in our flower beds and has made its way into a few of my images.
