It's Sunday again which means I was at the museum this morning. But it was cold! Didn't see anyone flying in the gardens and the ones in the flight cage didn't wake up until almost 11:00 am. And we had the heat lamp on! I even had my jacket on most of the morning. It also rained a lot yesterday so I guess this is our little cold front going through. I won't complain though; I've seen pictures of the rest of the country.
The Julias are still hanging out in the Kumquat tree.
But sometimes they hang out on other things.
The Giant STs are still in there but we don't seem to have any that bred or laid eggs, anyway. I haven't found eggs on the Kumquat or the Rue. Maybe I should have tried adding some Wild Lime? I hate that plant - THORNS!! They do lay eggs on it a lot. But, ouchie!
Zebra Longwings, as usual.
And there were some Monarchs but they were all hanging out up top. They hadn't laid any eggs on the milkweed, either. Bunch of slacker butterflies in the flight cage right now...
Sadly, I think our Malachites are about done. The last two cats made their chrysalises. I didn't see any butterflies in the flight cage and I couldn't find any eggs. I suppose the existing chrysalises could emerge and mate and lay eggs, but it looks like the cold temps finally got the best of them. Also, several of our Monarch chrysalises were parasatized by flies. We had a real drop off in the population this week. Bad times, but it is January. I did find two Monarch caterpillars out in the gardens so that was good, but I was really trying to find Sulphur cats. No luck there. Back at home, I pulled into the driveway to see my brother and Dad over by the Giant Milkweed which made me suspicious. Apparently, a Monarch cat was crawling in front of my brother's car and Dad was relocating it to the Giant Milkweed. I wonder where it came from? I pulled most of the milkweed last week and found a few more the other day but maybe I missed one. I'm glad he's a happy caterpillar now, anyway. The thought of starving caterpillars makes me sad.
And speaking of Monarchs, I was reading about how to germinate my milkweed seeds since my patented "Toss and Stomp" method didn't seem like it would work with these. For those that aren't aware, that's where I toss seeds on the ground, and then stomp on them to give them optimal seed to soil contact. I usually follow by watering. But these seeds said they need something called "cold stratification". Being a Floridian, I had to look that up (totally kidding, folks). The website I bought them from said to put them in the fridge for 30 days in moist sand. Since I needed clean sand (i.e. weed free), I stopped at Lowe's and bought some sand (and a few other things). So here are my Spider Milkweed seeds shortly before I put them in the fridge. I even labeled them and wrote the date on the lid! It's almost like I'm getting good at this!
