It was a good morning for birding, including spotting my first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) of the season. This is a male who was happy to model for me.
These woodpeckers for the most part eat arthropods, along with fruits and berries, tree sap, nuts, bast (inner bark of trees), and tree buds. I’m always delighted to have them return. The birds of winter, a favorite part of my favorite season.
During the summer while my volunteer White Wood Asters are blooming I can count on seeing bunches of American Lady Butterflies (Vanessa virginiensis) sipping the nectar. I see there are oodles of larvae host plants listed for American Lady Butterflies. Asters are one of the plants listed.
Purple Coneflowers will also attract them and make for a fun picture with the American Lady’s intricately designed ventral (or bottom) side of their wings visible.
Here the American Lady is on the blooms of Bugle Weed. This beautiful butterfly enjoys the nectars of flowers but also it’s attracted to the juice of rotting fruit and tree sap. I’ve been able to entice American Lady Butterflies to my back porch by putting out fruit that will eventually go into the compost. It’s fun to experiment and see who shows up.
Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis). A butterfly that lives in a broad swath of North America. Most of the eastern United States, central Plains states, and the southwest mountains; northern Mexico.
Its larvae survives exclusively on the many species of Hackberry trees, trees in the genus Celtis.
Hackberry Emperors over winter as larvae curled up in a Hackberry leaf, which falls to the ground in autumn becoming leaf litter. A good reason not to rake up that leaf litter!
As an adult the Hackberry Emperor Butterfly eats fermenting fruit (or corn as in this picture), dung, carrion, and sips tree sap. They also wouldn’t hesitate to sip sweat from your arm to consume the salt.
