- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ever seen a honey bee and a butterfly sharing a lavender blossom?
Just in time for National Pollinator Week, June 17-23, we saw this today.
What could be more pollinator friendly than that?
The honey bee, Apis mellifera, and the Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, meet on many a blossom. The butterfly usually flutters away, departing first.
This time the bee left first.
As Pollinator Partnership says on its website:
"Pollinator Week 2024 is a celebration of the vital role that pollinators play in our ecosystems, economies, and agriculture. Under the inspiring theme Vision 2040: Thriving Ecosystems, Economies, and Agriculture, this year's event urges us to envision a future where pollinators not only survive but thrive. These essential creatures, including bees, butterflies, moths, bats, beetles, and hummingbirds, are the unsung heroes behind the food we enjoy and the beauty that surrounds us. As we reflect on the interconnectedness of our world, let's unite in a collective effort to protect and preserve these crucial pollinators. By understanding the impact of our actions on their habitats and embracing sustainable practices, we can pave the way for a flourishing future..."
The bee and the butterfly would agree--if they could agree.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, is definitely back from a comeback, at least in the Sacramento, Davis and Vacaville-Fairfield areas.
In September of 2009, butterfly guru Art Shapiro, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, excitedly announced the re-appearance of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly in the Sacramento metropolitan area after a four-decade absence, and in the Davis area after a 30-year absence.
The showy butterfly colonized both south Sacramento and the Winding Way/Auburn Boulevard area in the 1960s but by 1971 "apparently became extinct or nearly so," recalled Shapiro, who has monitored the butterfly populations of central California since 1972 and maintains a research website at https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu.
It's a tropical and subtropical butterfly with a range that extends from the southern United States all the way to central Argentina.
No one knows exactly when the first Gulf Frit first arrived in California, but "it was already in the San Diego area by about 1875, Shapiro says, and it was first recorded in the San Francisco Bay Area around 1908.
A recent piece in The Acorn, published by the Effie Yeaw Nature Center, Carmichael, and authored by UC Davis entomologist Mary Louise Flint (see article), indicated the Gulf Fritillary is doing well in the area.
Good news!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The shadow knows, but what does it know?
It knows to follow.
It follows the Gulf Fritillary--a brightly colored orange and black butterfly with silver-spangled wings--up a fence in Vacaville, Calif., and vanishes.
That's what butterflies and shadows do--they vanish.
If you're growing passionflower vine (Passiflora), you've probably photographed the Agraulis vanillae egg, the caterpillar, the chrysalis and the adult.
But its shadow?
Have you photographed its shadow, that dark silhouette intercepting rays of light?
The shadow knows, but what does it know?
It knows to follow.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Gulf Frit, or "passion butterfly" (Agraulis vanillae), lays her tiny, yellow eggs, singly, on her host plant, the passionflower vine (Passiflora).
The egg? It's about the size of a pin head. Look closely and you'll see it's ridged like the raised lines of sand or a miniature ear of corn.
Often a Gulf Frit will deposit her egg on a tendril, which looks like a cork screw gone ballistic. Sometimes she'll lay her egg on a leaf, a bud, a stem or a nearby wall, gate or fence. Mama, how can we find our way?
We've grown Passiflora in our garden in Vacaville for decades. Some seasons the 'cats will skeletonize the plant, eating everything--from the leaves and blossoms right down to the stems.
Some gardeners refuse to plant the passionflower vine because a stripped plant makes them look like "a bad gardener." They have been known to pluck off the hungry 'cats to "save" the plant.
We let nature take its course. Butterflies mate, eggs hatch, caterpillars crawl, chrysalises form, and the cycle starts all over again. An egg is the promise of a new generation.
Last year the predators, including California scrub jays, praying mantises, spiders, yellowjackets and European paper wasps, grabbed their share of the 'cats.
This season, no. The scrub jays have, for the most part, vanished. Hey, look at that hawk circling our yard! The praying mantises are gone. And we haven't seen a yellowjacket, European paper wasp or spider for weeks.
It's a good year for the Gulf Frits! And a bad year for the passionflower vine... It is about to be skeletonized.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you've been ignoring your calendar, you may have not realized that autumn began Sept. 23.
We know it as the season between summer and winter, when days grow shorter, when liquidambar leaves turn red, and when the blanket flower lives up to its name.
The blanket flower, Gaillardia (family Asteraceae) has mastered the colors of fall. It's rimmed in gold and glows maroon.
Wikipedia tells us that the school colors of Texas State University are maroon and gold, "a combination inspired by the colors of the Gaillardia."
If you're lucky, you'll see a last-of-the-season Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, hanging from the blossom, its silver-spangled underwings sparkling.