Let's Begin with Butterflies

Let's begin to talk about specifics of how to provide water, food, and cover for one group of wildlife you may wish to attract to your yard. Butterflies are one of my favorites because I like to photograph as well as watch them. Let's begin with butterflies.

Caterpillars, or larval butterflies (also moths), get their water from the plants that they eat. The adults get water in several ways. One is via the nectar they obtain from flowers. Another way is through "puddling." Ever notice a large group of butterflies huddled together on the ground when it is hot? If you've noticed, the spot is usually wet. Butterflies will use their proboscis, their hollow needle-like mouthpart, to literally suck water from the soil. Nutrients are dissolved by the water as it sits on and is absobed into the soil. The butterflies also obtain these nutrients when they suck the water from the soil. Butterflies will also stand in a dry location and drink from very shallow water. Some butterflies, like the hackberry, love to rest on people and search the surface of the skin for delicious sweat. Sweat not only has a lot of water in it but also contains salt and nutrients. I have pictures of hackberry and red-spotted purple butterflies feeding on rotting pears. They obtain water and a variety of nutrients this way, including sugars (which, by the way, are also found in nectar). Butterflies will also obtain water by sucking sap from wounds in trees and shrubs. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a bird that puts numerous small holes in trees and eats sap, also helps butterflies obtain a meal by providing ready access to these plant juices.

Obviously, many of the places where the adult butterflies obtain a drink are also food sources because minerals, sugars, and other foodstuffs are dissoved in the water. Everyone knows that adult butterflies feed on nectar obtained from flowers. But did you know that some butterflies will feed on scat (animal droppings) and the juices of decaying animal matter? I guess that's one reason to leave the dog droppings in the yard. However, I'm not sure the neighbors will buy it if the dog stuff ends up in their yard!

You should also feed the larvae, that is caterpillars, if you want more butterflies around. You likely know that caterpillars feed on plants, mainly leaves. Adult butterflies tend to lay their eggs on or near the plant that their caterpillars will eat. So, you can have eggs and young by providing the appropriate larval food plants. In addition, some plants provide food for both the caterpillar and adult. An example would be butterfly weed (Asclepius tuberosa). This milkweed provides nectar for the adults and also feeds the monarch caterpillar. The story is well known. The monarch caterpillar feeds on milkweeds and obtains some substances distasteful to birds. The distasteful substances are also found in the adult (I also assume in the pupa as well) and birds avoid them. Each species has at least one plant, and usually several more, on which the caterpillar will feed. Provide the right plant and the eggs and caterpillars will come. Assuming you are in the right area and surroundings for that species of butterly.

What about cover? Where do butterflies hide and rest? Well, normally under the leaves of plants or sometimes under the flaky bark. Some species rest high in the trees. Others will spend the night near the ground hiding in the grass or low lying herbs. The caterpillars usually hide in the same places and others where they can find protection from predators. Pupal cases or the bare pupae can be found on plants, under bark, in the leaf litter, underground, any similar places where they will have to spend some time out of the site of those that like to eat them.

So, you now know how to attract a variety of butterflies. Provide various types of flowers that produce nectar. Allow fruit that falls from your apple or pear trees to rot or take some out of the refrigerator and put them outside. Moisten soil on hot days and provide a bird bath from which the butterflies can obtain water. Grow some plants on which caterpillars will feed. It sounds bad, but leave those dog droppings in the yard -- maybe in an out-of-the-way corner. Of course, let the hackberry butterflies stop by and have a sweat meal once in a while. "Hey honey, I'm going to go lie out in the sun and feed the hackberry butterflies!" "Yes, dear. But don't feed them too long." If you have a variety of plants in your yard the butterflies will also find cover. They will also use it for reproductive cover.

In the next article I'll discuss some other things you can do to keep the butterfly population in your yard healthy.

Collecting Seed of Local Native Plants

There are some important things to know before you begin collecting the seeds of local native plants you may wish to grow in your backyard (when I say backyard I am also including the sides and front as well). Here are some tips:

1. First and foremost get the permission of the landowner. Public lands, such as National Wildlife Refuges, do not permit collection of plants, seeds, etc. without a permit. Getting this material is not worth the trouble it may bring you if you trespass to do it.
2. You should collect seeds of plants from sites that are similar to those in your yard. Is it in a wetland or area that stays wet? If so, you don’t want to collect and plant the seeds in a dry portion of your yard. It likely will not survive and you may get disappointed.
3. Do not collect all of the seeds from a plant. It is important to leave some for natural re-population of that plant species in the area. If there is only one plant, take a small proportion of the seeds and leave the rest. You can usually find the same plant species in several areas and will be able to collect enough seed for your purposes. If there are several individuals at a location and you plan to plant more than one in your yard, collect seeds from a number of individuals. When they mature and pollinate one another the resulting seed will have more genetic diversity than if you planted seeds from only one individual. The genetic diversity will help you have healthier plants if you grow them from these seeds or if you let them naturally drop seed and grow.
4. Seeds from some types of plants must be exposed to the weather or other environmental factors in order to germinate. For instance, cold may be needed to crack open the outer shell and allow the seedling to grow. It is always best to try to plant the seed when you collect it or shortly thereafter.

Of course, the seeds of plants are always contained in their fruits. Fruits come in a variety of forms and I don’t want to get into the technical aspects of their names and structure. The fruits can be similar to apples and oranges in which many seeds are contained within a large fleshy structure. They can be a nut with only one seed. The fruits can be a small structure that appears to be only a seed. In any case, if you are not sure which is the seed, plant the entire fruit. In the case of some plants, such as some asters, the seed is extremely small. Just take a mature flower head and shake or crumble it in the spot where you want the plant to grow. This will release some of the seeds.

The plant family Asteraceae has many members and the common name is typically “asters.” This family is also believed to be the most advanced. What looks like the single flower is actually a structure called the inflorescence that is made up of a large number of flowers of two types. The disk flowers are the structures that make up the center portion of the inflorescence. The ray flowers are the structures that radiate out from the center and appear to be petals. Each part of the disk and each individual “petal” is actually a separate flower and may have all of the parts to form seed. Typically, the disk flowers or those in the center produce the seed. The rays usually lack all of the parts necessary to form seed. Thus, you need to be careful not to discard the portion that contains the seed. Again, plant the entire “flower” (that is, the inflorescence) if you are not sure which contains the seed. As an aside, butterflies, bees, and other invertebrates that feed on asters will do so on the flowers that form the seed because these will be the only ones that typically produce nectar. Since this is usually the disk flowers, you will wish to pick flowers with large disks, rather than a similar variety with small disks, since the larger disks will have more flowers that produce nectar. This is true of domesticated flowers in the aster family (for example, zinnia, black-eyed susan, blanket flower, coneflower, fleabane, sunflower, coreopsis, and daisy).

Go Native

What do I mean when I say "Go native." I mean that we shoud strive to plant species that are native to our area. Why? For a number of reasons, including it:

1. Maintains "natures balance."
2. Makes maintainenance a snap.
3. Prevents problems with exotic plants.

Although each of these is a complex subject, I will try to provide some simple explanations below.

Local wildlife and those that migrate through a particular area adapted to certain plants through time. Plants and animals interact in many ways and actually effect the evolution of each other. These interactions are not always understood. Thus, animals should be provided with the foods and cover to which they adapted. Growing native plants will continue this relationship between plants and animals. For example, an exotic (not native to the area) plant's flower may provide nectar to a butterfly, but is the combination of the types and amounts of minerals and nutrients in the nectar the healthiest for the butterfly? It is if the butterfly has adapted to use nectar from a particular local flower over the eons.

Native plants normally require less maintenance once they are established. They are accustomed to the soil, rainfall, and other local conditions. Thus, they typically need little fertilization, watering, and general pampering that many exotic plants require (I will not go into the problems this prevents except to give one brief example-- the prevention of over fertilization of local bodies of water due to runoff from fertilized lawns, flower beds, etc.). Some natives can be found at local nursuries. More and more native plant nursuries are propsering as people learn the value of native plants. Try to buy plants grown in the local area when you get them from a nursery. In some cases, natives can be grown far away from where you live or from seed of plants that grew far away. This is especially true of native plants that are found over a large area (for example, one that grows throughout the United States). Having trouble locating a source? Go to a local site where you are permitted to collect seed and grow them yourself. It can be quite satisfying to grow your own plants from seed you collected personally. However, there are some things to be aware off before you begin collecting seed from local areas. I will post information related to this topic in the near future.

Did you know that the introduction of exotic plants and animals into the United States is costing "billions and billions" of dollars each year? Search the word "invasives" and you will find out why (Visit here for a wonderful place to learn about this topic.). Exotic plants grown in yards often escape and can become significant pests, especially if they are highly invasive (rapaidly spread and invade areas). Many of these exotic plants do not have the pests and diseases that keep their populations in check in these new areas. The plants can spread like wildfire, outcomplete native plants that do have existing checks and balances, change the types of food and cover available for wildife, and create all sorts of unimaginable problems on the landscape.

Do I have any exotics in my yard? Very few. However, the few that I have planted are not, to my knowledge, invasive. If I find out they are, I'll remove them! I had some control over this from the start. We built our house and I provided the builder a list of plants that he should use in landscaping my yard. Generally, he did a good job. So, I have gone and continue to go native.