A reader’s home hosts a butterfly roost
If you’re really lucky and love butterflies, your town may have a butterfly habitat where you can sit and watch these beautiful creatures flutter about to your heart’s content. And if you’re really lucky, you will find one on your front porch, as reader Tara O. reports:
My parents have a butterfly nursery in the front of their house. We counted 49 cocoons under the eaves and the ceiling of the front porch. I looked them up and they are called Mourning Cloak Butterflies.
Wow! So cool!
I like his blue spots. 🙂
Tara how wonderful. Thanks for sharing this!
I too love the blue spots!
Thank you Tara! That was so lovely. And thanks to your parents for allowing them to – what? – hatch? in peace.
Mazel Tov! You’re going to be an auntie and your parents – grandparents! Seriously, this is very cool and thank you to your parents for helping out. The butterflies are gorgeous, not the usual colors I’ve seen before.
How completely wonderful. Please tell your folks how much we’re enjoying what they have made possible. Beautiful.
One little correction I’d like to make on the pretty butterflies. Butterflies make CHRYSALISES, NOT COCOONS!! Moths make cocoons. They’re made of entirely different materials. I raised MANY Giant Swallowtails, Black Swallowtails, Monarchs, Zebra Longwings, and several other varieties when we lived in Florida. I searched to find out what kinds called the area we lived in HOME when we moved there in 2006 so I could raise the proper foods. I had mesh tents that I raised the caterpillars in so they were safe from predators and had the right vegetation to eat. Raised several kinds of veggies, plants, trees, etc. so they’d be sure to eat and grow properly. I LOVED when the chrysalises would open up to reveal the beautiful butterflies hiding inside. My pleasure was carrying them outside on a finger, letting them rest on my hand for a bit, and then watching them take flight. What an exhilarating feeling!! All the work was definitely worthwhile!! I have TONS of pictures saved from each year of my butterfly rearing days. I raised them from 2006 to 2017 when we moved from FL to AZ.
Hi Lois! Thanks for the correction! We weren’t sure how to conjugate ‘chrysalis’ so decided cocoon would suffice. Clearly we erred. Your adventures with the ‘busterflies’ sounds heavenly.
This was a complete surprise to us all – we assumed COVID had something to do with. I’m home in Philadelphia and will miss the rest of the emergences. But the few I witnessed were wonderful.
Since birds, butterflies, and flowers have always been my main interest in life (after our 4 children left the nest) as I HAVE to be nurturing something (I’m also a retired RN) and my hubby new I wouldn’t forget him, I really started working with wildlife/gardening adventures. When we lived in IL before moving to FL in 2006, we had many hummingbirds who visited both our feeders and several of the flowering plants we grew. We had butterflies of all kinds that called our yard ‘home’ so when we moved to FL I did my homework to find out what kinds we’d find in our county. We built a new home so had a whole yard to devote to planting just the right plants for all the butterflies who we’d find there. I see very few here in AZ but do get hummers at my sugar/water feeders on my balcony of the senior living apartment we moved to. Strange but we got NO hummingbirds in FL even with all those blooming flowers we grew!! Hummers are VERY numerous in AZ!! Many apartment dwellers here have feeders out and there’s always birds coming to them. Even some Flickers and even Gila Woodpeckers!! I never knew they liked sugar/water!!
Ah, Lois – your adventures with Nature sound so much fun. My parents have a humming bird feeder as well – the little Rufus Hummingbird is very territorial!
Butterfly transformer pods.
Tara, how did your folks get so lucky? I would gladly welcome butterflies to my porch ceiling!
And thanks for sharing these beauties with us.
Butterfly Transformer Pods! Ha! Nice –
We have no idea how they got so lucky. They have almost 50 chrysalises on their house vs. only a scant dozen on neighbor’s houses on either side. Does color attract them? We also noticed that they seemed to cluster near a vent on the eaves.
Pixie knows that it’s a chrysalis… kinda.
Maybe you could post some of those pictures? They sound really interesting.
I’m not sure how to add pictures. I tried to copy/paste and that didn’t work. I’ll try another way if someone can tell me how to do it. Thanks.
If they’re not online somewhere you can email them to Mike at submissions@cutetropolis.com. Last time I did that he uploaded it and then sent me back an image link that I could put in a comment.
No, they’re not on line. They’re only on my computer by the year I took them. I’ll pull up a few and add them to an email to Mike and see what happens. At my age, learning something new isn’t easy. I’m ONLY 84!! Or will be next Wednesday. 🙂 Thanks for the help.
Happy almost-Birthday! 🦋
Thank you!! I sent Mike 9 butterfly pictures so we’ll see how that turns out. I hadn’t thought about sending him the pics to post. Wednesday will be just like every other day in our senior residence!! We had a Birthday Party last week for all the June birthdays. My son and daughter-in-law will be here Wed. to celebrate with me. They only live a few miles away from the residence. I see them at least once a week as they do a grocery run for me for items our kitchen here doesn’t fix and I can fix in my own kitchen!!
ooo! thanks for posting Mr. Mike! I wasn’t sure if this was “cute” enough for Cutetropolis. I’m so excited to see this here. Thank you!
Stop the presses!!!!!! I really hate to interrupt the cute but this is very important Fiona news. So important it couldn’t wait to send into Mike. You can now have your very own Fiona garden statue and it’s done to her exact dimensions when she was born 😮😮😮😍
https://shopcincinnatizoo.com/collections/whats-new/products/fiona®-garden-statue
😯🦛
Oh man! Wish I could afford one!
That’s fantastic. Cincinnati Zoo does such a great job reminding us of how much we love Fiona.
If only I had a garden!
Thank you. 🙂
Those are gorgeous creatures, that red is stunning but why such a morbid name? I guess because the red is so dark.
If it were lighter I guess that they’d be mORning cloak