| The second year of our Butterfly Garden is coming to a close. The milkweed barely returned. Those that did return were withered and stunted--so the Monarchs we looked forward to didn't happen, but ast year we planted two tiny pipevines (A. californica). As a result, for the first time ever, we saw beautiful black butterflies called Pipevine Swallowtails. They were everywhere. This year I saw a Mourning Cloak. A big beautiful black butterfly with a wide band of yellow on the edges of its wings. They over-winter as butterflies. How hardy they must be to endure the winters of this northern end of the Sacramento Valley! So far this year (March), the same few butterflies come to visit our Butterfly Garden. It is early and only the Verbena is blooming. There are two cabbage whites, one yellow, one Mourning Cloak, one Western Tiger Swallowtail, and two Pipevine Swallowtails, and one West Coast Lady (that may be a Painted Lady). They come everyday, beelining for the garden. |