Butterflies on Fuerteventura

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Red Admirals in the garden the last few days:



and possibly the last Monarch chrysalid discovered on a milkweed I was about to plant in the garden from the shade frame:

 it hadn't been feeding on the plants in the shade frame and it's a long walk from any other milkweed!

You could almost hear my milkweeds breathe a sigh of relief the other day as the last caterpillars went into chrysalids - time to grow some decent leaves before they all get munched again.

Does anyone know the migration pattern of the Monarchs that visit us? Plenty online about the American/Mexican migration routes.

[Tardis]

Last year we had Monarch butterflies breeding throughout autumn and winter.  They never went away.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Thanks Tardis and Sam.

Today I had a 'green-veined white' butterfly and a pretty little moth that I've got no idea as to it's name.

 

[Tardis]

Thanks Tardis and Sam.

Today I had a 'green-veined white' butterfly and a pretty little moth that I've got no idea as to it's name.

 

It's called a Crimson Speckled Moth.  Here's a photo of one in our garden.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Thanks Tardis, since that first pic I've seen quite a few more - I can never remember seeing them here before.



Also disturbed this big beauty (about 4 inches long) when I was doing the watering, possibly one of the Hawkmoths although I haven't seen any of their spectacular caterpillars this year:



and my milkweeds are swarming with Monarch caterpillars again, luckily they had a break of about 5 or 6 weeks so they had regained a nice lot of leaf. Spotted some Oleander bug on one of the plants today so spent quite a while carefully squashing that while avoiding tiny caterpillars - labour of love!

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

The clue was the large caterpillar poos on the path 🤣

It set me searching in the Guaydil growing next to the path and I discovered a Death's Head Hawkmoth caterpillar, only days after saying I hadn't seen one this year.

 

  

My garden is awash with Monarch caterpillars and another female was here laying yet more eggs today. If anyone has Milkweed and no eggs/caterpillars and would like to adopt some, please shout!

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

All but the last few Monarch caterpillars have morphed into chrysalids thank goodness because there's hardly a milkweed leaf left in the garden. I naively thought that propagating more plants would mean plenty to go around. Silly me, it just meant more butterflies laid more eggs - duh!
I watched this chrysalid forming, the caterpillar shook and shimmied and seemed to turn itself inside out - amazing - didn't take long. I took this pic just before the final performance - the top is still striped (yellow and white) although the black stripes have disappeared. (The caterpillar on the next stalk is nothing to do with these comments!)



The death's-head hawkmoth caterpillars have all but disappeared - they got enormous before they went. This one is tail-end Charlie.



and a neighbour found this one in her garden:
 messaged me in a panic thinking it was something nasty, like a cutworm!

I've now netted at least half of the milkweed in the garden to make sure it can recover and rooted cuttings that I hadn't put in the ground are going to be grown on in bigger pots as emergency rations for the next brood!

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Another brood of the death's-head hawkmoth caterpillars:

 

This one is approx 5 inches long.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

The Milkweeds, orange and yellow flowered ones, are back in bloom and the Monarchs are feeding and laying eggs.

 

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

New crop of caterpillars on the milkweeds but also an army of Oleander Bug 


spent several hours squashing by hand every one I could find, there'll probably be a fresh army tomorrow.