Bon Posted October 22, 2016 Share Posted October 22, 2016 Drought, disease take toll on local monarch efforts By Eric Hrin ehrin@thecourierexpress.com By Eric Hrin Karen Trudo, treasurer of BUDS Gardeners, holds one of the tagged monarch butterflies that were released this year. DuBOIS Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bon Posted October 22, 2016 Author Share Posted October 22, 2016 Why are there still Monarchs flying around? Shouldn't they have left the area by now? We are seeing lots of white moths also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 I have not seen a Monarch all year as I recall.. Maybe to make them more Hearty??? we should mix there DNA with these damn Ladybugs. Those things seem to have some sort of survival method that I dont understand. But then again,, maybe we should not mess with nature. When we do it always seems to turn out ,,,Not so good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 Why are there still Monarchs flying around? Shouldn't they have left the area by now? We are seeing lots of white moths also. The white ones are the dreaded cabbage butterflies that lay on the cole crops. I don't know why the drought would have singled out the monarachs. I had more butterflies than usual this year. Lots of fritillaries , a couple of types of swallowtails and skippers. Also bon's cabbage butterflies in the hundreds. There were others but it is difficult to identify them on the wing and I'm not about to catch them just to find out what they are. Didn't see any sulfurs or the little blue azures. I had several other people ask why there were so many butterflies this year but even the butterfly expert from Penn State could not answer that question. I did ask here at the butterfly program sponsored by Friends of the Library. Nature has its own processes and they are frequently a mystery to man. We aren't getting the dinosaurs back either. It is what it is. Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bon Posted October 23, 2016 Author Share Posted October 23, 2016 We had black butterflys this summer also. Couldn't get a decent picture of it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 We had black butterflys this summer also. Couldn't get a decent picture of it at all. Black swallowtails? I think they lay their eggs on the Queen Anne's lace. There is also a poison hemlock down the road that can act as a host plant. We don't see nearly as many of them since the dog died. They like dog poop. Something about minerals. They would sit in the sun and enjoy the rays and what the dog left them. Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bon Posted October 23, 2016 Author Share Posted October 23, 2016 Black swallowtails? I think they lay their eggs on the Queen Anne's lace. There is also a poison hemlock down the road that can act as a host plant. We don't see nearly as many of them since the dog died. They like dog poop. Something about minerals. They would sit in the sun and enjoy the rays and what the dog left them. That explains why they like our yard. lavender 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dobby Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 What does the monarch caterpillar look like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dobby Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I looked it up & now know what it looks like. I am happy to help with this cause! There are loads of milkweed plants near me, so if Erin can pm me then we can chat. We have also seen way too many of theses guys near us. See attatched picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dobby Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 See new topic please couldn't attatched picture here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petee Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 I'm out of town at a seminar and the internet is terrible so you may want to type Monarch images into a Search Engine and check them out. There are many butterfly species that you can find locally and raise for fun. Monarchs are the only species that migrate. Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petee Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 If there is Poison Hemlock near you then don't let it go to seed. It's an extremely nasty invasive weed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Pompeii Posted October 26, 2016 Administrators Share Posted October 26, 2016 Just received a link for an article from a reader. 7 Common Monarch Diseases, Parasites, and Caterpillar Killershttp://monarchbutterflygarden.net/common-monarch-diseases-prevention/ Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 Excellent article that reminds us that when we mess with Mother Nature there are often unforeseen consequences. Providing what are better conditions for hatching eggs or growing plants also provides improved conditions for disease and introduced predators. Brings to mind the woman who was starting an organic farm and thought that she could raise seedlings in the soil from her yard. She probably would have been OK but she decided to do it indoors. It made the bacteria and fungi in the soil so happy that they cheerfully killed off all her seedlings. The old gardener that put her right did a lot of head shaking. Nature has a balance. Unset it and be prepared to intervening again and again to reach a new balance. Dobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dobby Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 Thanks for the information! Added a photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petee Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 We are doing this with guidance from Monarch Watch, Journey North, and the Folks Butterfly Farm in order to counteract what humans have done to them. This isn't messing with nature. A 90% survival rate raised in a protected environment versus a 10% survival rate in contaminated nature speaks for itself. Pheobe and Dobby 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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