White Peacock Butterfly and Friends
Enjoy a few butterfly photos from my training as a docent at a
butterfly house this morning.
White Peacock
This is a tropical flowering plant that is being used for nectar for the butterflies inside the butterfly house.
Monarch
Easter Black Swallowtail
Sleepy Orange
I'm super happy to tell my readers that I am now a docent (a person who acts as a guide) at a butterfly house about 20 minutes north of my home.
I just finished my training today.
It's located in McKinney, Texas at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary.
I'll probably be volunteering there a few hours a week.
The idea behind the butterfly house is to educate the people that visit this butterfly house on the wildlife sanctuary property about how to sustain our native butterflies.
I have been planting host and nectar plants in my yards/gardens since the fall of 2012, with the idea of attracting and sustaining the native butterfly population in my part of Texas.
This is my hobby and my passion.
Each kind of butterfly has only one kind of host plant or sometimes a couple of host plants the female butterflies will lay their eggs on.
When the eggs hatch, then the tiny caterpillars will have the right leaf(food) to eat and thrive.
Have a Blessed Day!
June 16, 2018
All original photos taken by me
I had never heard of a docent. What a great thing to do. Congratulations!
Congrats!! I am sure you are gonna love your new position with all the pretty butterflies :)
Love Easter Black Swallowtail!
Violet ... that is one of the coolest job ever:) You are such a gentle soul and so well-suited to care for butterflies. Congratulations.
Thank you, you are so kind! Hope you are having a great weekend!
You are the best person to be a docent for butterflies. But I think if my kids came there they would trample the whole museum.
Haha, you could take them hiking on the trails - there are 5 different trails around the property!
Excellent! Congratulations. I assume this means that we are going to get a continuous STREAM of even BETTER - and more information and photo-packed posts about butterflies into the future. Bring it on!...
Congratulations! Your love for the butterfly will put an imrint on the history of their survival as a species. I learned a ton about Monarchs when I was a kid, and I hope the state of that species is less grim than it was in the 90's/early 2000's.
Hi Sam, the monarchs have declined over the years but they seem to have made a small comeback from what I have read. The monarchs need more milkweed to lay their eggs all they way from Texas and up to the northern states. The farmers started destroying a lot of the milkweed several years ago. Anyway more people are planting milkweed in their yards and also nature preserves are planting it. Mexico also has do to do it's part and not let the forests where the monarchs overwinter be destroyed.
I see. Is it still/was it ever true that there is only one cave in Mexico that all the monarchs ( or at least the vast majority) from the western hemisphere mate in?
No, someone gave you incorrect information about a cave. They migrate to specific mountains in Mexico and overwinter. Some just migrate to southern CA. The butterflies just come out of the hibernation stage in early spring and find a mate. The male monarchs pretty much just die and the females make their way north to find milkweed to lay their eggs on and then they die.
http://monarchbutterflyusa.com/monarch-life-cycle/
such kind of amazing @photography and caption in nature.
wow clicks really....
Awesome photos you have here! Really nice. By the way, I've created a new Steemit t-shirt, if you want to see it just replay me.
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