Rotting fruit, sap flows on trees, and even bird droppings. The favorite foods of the Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. If the Red Admiral can’t find these it will sip flower nectar from Common Milkweed, Red Clover, Aster, and Alfalfa and more.
The dropping Persimmons here on my mountain have been a bigtime draw for these beautiful butterflies, and Coma and Question Mark butterflies. Try putting out some extra ripe fruits to see if some of these butterflies will come by for a visit.
Legs covered in blue and purple sparkles with a gilded body, much larger than mosquitoes that we usually notice, the Elephant Mosquito, Toxorhynchites rutilus, is one mosquito that we should encourage.
Here is the REALLY good part (1), the Elephant Mosquito does not hunt humans down to get a blood meal. They won’t bite us as they cruise the gardens looking for sources of nectar. They won’t bite as they roam the neighborhood hunting for plant sap, honeydew, or juices from rotting fruit, which they also eat.
And REALLY good part (2), the larvae of Elephant Mosquitoes eat other mosquito larvae!
Wow! Include this insect on my list of best friends!
In front of my cabin right now, there is a constant buzz . There are loads of trees and bushes involved in the sound, three good sized trees, planted soon after our cabin was built, many years ago – pear, MacIntosh apple, and Monmorency cherry, and a good number of blueberry bushes planted at about the same time as the fruit trees. Plus there are several wild cherry trees contributing to the buzz, at the edge of the woods.
As you might imagine, the sound is not exactly being generated by the trees and bushes themselves, but by the critters that are enjoying the nectar, like the Hummingbird Hawk-moth, Hemaris thysbe, pictured above, at the apple tree.
There are loads of bees and wasps. This bee is sipping nectar at one of the blueberry bushes.
The most plentiful species buzzing about is a large number of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus. They give action to the scene with their constant motion and larger size. The two images, above, are both Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. The top image is a light morph female. The image immediately above is a male.
This, above, is also an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. It is a dark morph female. The dark morph female is mimicking the color and pattern of the Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor. There is a measure of protection using this coloring and pattern, since Pipevine Swallowtails are poisonous and predators will be less likely to eat the mimic.
This visitor, a bit frayed, is one of my favorite butterflies, a Zebra Swallowtail, Protographium marcellus. If this butterfly were newly emerged from its chrysalis, it would have two swordlike tails and the faded coral spots, that you see here, would be a brilliant crimson.
Another butterfly buzzing about is the Silver-spotted Skipper, Epargyreus clarus, one of our largest skippers. Interesting: it is said that the Silver-spotted Skipper will not seek the nectar of flowers that are yellow. I’ll have to watch the yellow flowers on the mountain, and see! This skipper is quite common in the area.
All this action, sipping of nectar, brings on pollination of the blooms. Soon there will be apples, pears, cherries, and blueberries as a result, enough to keep me busy for a while, like the pollinators that are busy right now!
