Wednesday Walk Without Butterflies
I love the colors outside at dusk whenever there is a reddish sunset. This is just a scrap of azalea I chopped off and left on the pavement for my genie to pick up, the old chop and drop technique. My genie is on vacay apparently because here it still is, weeks later and no clean up has been done. But lucky me, it has beautiful colors in it. Beauty in a piece of trash.
When I turned around, I was struck by the dusk enhanced colors of Patches. Couldn't quite get the luminosity into the photo though, no matter how many of the tricks I pulled out of my phone's editing arsenal. I really need a real camera!
So much for the end of the day, here's how the day started.
I took three steps outside my kitchen door to water the swamp milkweed in a pot just outside. I'd been told that monarch butterflies LOVE swamp milkweed, and I checked every day to see if any of the beauties, which were swarming my joe pye weed ten feet too high for me to photograph, were on the swamp milkweed more in reach of my phone's camera. But I spied instead..... what is that?! Shit? SOMETHING HAD TAKEN DUMPS ALL OVER MY SWAMP MILKWEED! Whatever it was also appeared to be eating it! On closer look I found...
Five monarch caterpillars! This shot has four in it, the fifth can be seen in the photo above.
Boy was I psyched! They were going to make their cocoons right there outside my back door and I would be able to chronicle the whole shebang! Bonanza!
The next day I went out for day two in the chronicling of a caterpillar's transformation into butterfly and found instead....
....a nearly defoliated swamp milkweed and not one single caterpillar! Where did they all go I wonder. Interestingly, I notice that they did not eat enough to kill the plant. Every single stem has enough foliage left on it to survive and recover, probably even flower. Even caterpillars know enough to protect their ecosystems. What is up with man?
Maybe the butterflies will come land on the blooms for me to finally catch a decent shot of a butterfly. Believe me, I have tried. Those little buggers are hard to catch in the act!
This is my entry to @tattoodjay's #wednesdaywalk https://steempeak.com/busy/@tattoodjay/wednesday-walk-and-make-me-smile-challenge-and-steem-basic-income-give-away. Come walk with us! We learn amazing things from each other.
And thanks so much for stopping by!
Bratty little caterpillars! 😂
I hope they make it up to you by posing pretty for you in the very near future. And I think I've said this before, but given how awesome your photos are with just a phone camera, yeah, you really need to get yourself the real deal. They are so
addicitvemuch fun! 📷 ❤️You have a genie? All I got is a magic cleaning fairy for the kids. Bwahahahaaa! I don't usually see caterpillars on the milkweed, but do see tons of beetles. And it is odd this year, the leaves are already turning colors and we had a windy 'leaf storm' a few days ago.
Buggers hiding in their cosy cocoons...well, in their next stage but still...
Shy to fly...
Good luck next day!
This plant was a good twenty feet from my milkweed patch. Did they crawl all the way over there to make their cocoons on? I think they only do that on milkweed, the regular kind. I'll go look later. Thanks for dropping in!
What??? I was all ready for the unveiling!!! Rats!
On another note, perhaps they will come back where they were born? Who knows. All I know is they don't roll over and play pretty for me. I have a devil of a time capturing them!
Good luck!!!
!tip
Something tells me your butterfly friends will definitely be around visiting 💕😍 I look forward to seeing the pics when you get to snap them 🙏
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Ohh butterflies torment me always flying away just before i get a shot of them,its cool you got the shots of the caterpillars I wonder where they went after that ate their fill from your plant can not have been to far, t is cool how they left enough of the plant for it to survive and recover
I would be on the lookout for a new Genie if i was you yours seems to be sacking
We're not even as intelligent as caterpillars!
Our freewrite comrade whatisnew gets some amazing closeup shots of butterflies. I've no idea what her secret is though. I've never managed even one shot myself.
Yup, when I see those shits all over the place I knew they were around somewhere!!!
Nice post with natural view.
Oooh, I want to get some milkweed seeds to start to grow some here! That really is amazing how nature is so much better at checks and balances that we are. Yet we are supposed to be the highly advance beings, right? I hope you get some Monarchs to come back later on! That would be a nice reward after munching on your plants. ;)
I think about this a lot so thank you for commenting. We are advanced beings, and it's time we started acting like them. Advanced beings should be able to see that all Being is advanced and give all Being its due. Man thinks it is both his responsibility and his right to improve on everything material. But the "improvements" are met with wrath from the bodies (illness) and I wonder what earth will do? Climate scientists know no more than our doctors, who are obviously screwing our immune systems up. We worship science at great peril, it is no deity, it is soulless. So that's what I think and I am sticking with it.
Just go harvest some milkweed pods when they open and strew them in your yard. Watch for them the next year they are easy to spot. After that, you're golden
The earth provides what we need, whether we want it or not.