Katie's Sightings

Down in the Garden!

Western Tiger Swallowtail - Papilio rutulus rutulus

In our neighborhood, most of the native flowers have already blossomed and gone to seed. I seriously searched for blooming plants on my morning walks this week, but only found a few Indian Pinks and some native Pipestems/Clematis flowering! Because we have lots of non-native flowers in bloom in our garden right now, it has become a fabulous spot to watch moths, butterflies, beetles, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and birds!

The Western Swallowtail Butterflies have been around for a few months, lots and lots of them! More than I have ever seen! Here is some information about them from https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org:

"Life History: Males patrol canyons or hilltops for receptive females. Females lay eggs singly on surface of host plant leaves. Caterpillars feed on leaves and rest on silken mats in shelters of curled leaves. Chrysalids hibernate.

Caterpillar Hosts: Leaves of cottonwood and aspen (Populus), willows (Salix), wild cherry (Prunus), and ash (Fraxinus).

Adult Food: Nectar from many flowers including thistles, abelia, California buckeye, zinnia, and yerba santa.

Habitat: Woodlands near rivers and streams, wooded suburbs, canyons, parks, roadsides, and oases."

Snowberry Clearwing Moth - Hemaris diffinis

A few large, unusual, and uncommon moths showed up in our garden this week. They were Hummingbird Moths, specifically Snowberry Clearwing Moths! I see them once in a while in our garden. Their clear wings beat so fast, it's almost impossible to see them! They also fan out their tail scales and hover in front of flowers, just like Hummingbirds! I've watched them feed on our Butterfly Bush for several days! They are large insects! At first I thought it was a Bumblebee, but then I realized the abdomen was much longer. The following information on this moth is from the website https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators:

"Perhaps one of the most delightful insect visitors to your garden is the hummingbird moth. Several species of the genus Hemaris deserve this name and for very good reason. They fly and move just like hummingbirds. Like them, they can remain suspended in the air in front of a flower while they unfurl their long tongues and insert them in flowers to sip their nectar. They even emit an audible hum like hummingbirds.

Like the majority of moths and butterflies, the adult hummingbird moths feed on nectar from a variety of flowers, but their larvae/caterpillars need more specific food plants, such as several species of honeysuckle, dogbane, or some members of the rose family such as hawthorn, cherries, and plums.

The females entice the males with an aroma or pheromone that they produce from glands at the tip of the abdomen. After mating, they lay their tiny, round, green eggs on their larvae host plants, usually on the underside of the leaves.

The caterpillars have a horn at the rear end and are commonly green, well camouflaged among the leaves. When they are fully-grown they drop to the ground, spin a loose cocoon and pupate, partially protected by leaf litter. That leaf litter so hated by some gardeners provides a shelter to this beautiful pollinator. In the north, where the season is short there is only one generation per year; the pupa spends the whole winter well hidden and the adult does not emerge until the next spring."

This year is also an incredible year for White-lined Sphinx Moths. I usually see them in our garden in early spring, and only just a few of them. Lately I've seen them in our garden AND in the Lakes Basin Meadows! Wow!

Your questions and comments are appreciated. Please feel free to email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!