Butterfly gardening is gaining popularity, and with good reason! Any flower garden instantly becomes more interesting when winged beauties stop by to sip sweet nectar from the blooms. But the fluttering adults represent just one stage in the life of a butterfly. To support a healthy population of these colorful pollinators, it's key to provide food for their caterpillars as well.
Nectar Plants vs. Host Plants
Most adult butterflies are attracted to flowers, and many sample from an array of blooms, as long as they have a good nectar supply and enough space to land. Popular choices, such as coneflowers, zinnias or verbenas, may get visits from dozens of butterfly species.
But when it comes to host plants for the caterpillars (also called larvae, the plural for larva), it's a different story. The larvae of most butterfly species are very particular and will feed on only a few kinds of plants. For example, monarch caterpillars are famous for munching solely on milkweeds. Many people now plant milkweeds to support these orange-and-black fliers, but those plants are no help for the vast majority of butterflies that can't digest milkweeds. So while it's possible to attract many kinds of adult butterflies with just a few nectar plants, growing host plants requires more attention and variety.
Be a Good Larvae Host
To boost your success in hosting butterfly larvae, find a good native plant nursery in your region, and talk with the staff about the possibilities for your garden. Although there are exceptions, local native plant species almost always make the best hosts for nearby butterflies.
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Denne historien er fra June/July 2023-utgaven av Birds & Blooms.
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Sense or Nonsense? - Why some birds can taste and smell - but others can't
Does a porcelain berry taste like a blueberry to a gray catbird? Does a block of lard smell like frying bacon to a northern flicker? The short answer is no. While some avian species do have a well-adapted sense of taste or smell, they can't distinguish between flavors and odors the way humans can. They're not picking up every ingredient in the suet you put out, says José Ramírez-Garofalo, an ornithology researcher at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the director of Freshkills Biological Station in Staten Island, New York.
Maple Mania - Amazing facts about this fall foliage mainstay
Amazing facts about this fall foliage mainstay
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Even if you haven't heard of Canada jays, you've heard of their relatives. Members of the corvid family, they belong to the same group as American crows, blackbilled magpies, and jays including blue, Steller's and scrub. "Unlike many of the other jays, a Canada jay doesn't have a crest of any kind; it just has a rounded head," says Dale Gentry, director of conservation for Audubon Upper Mississippi River.In 2018, the Canada jay's name was changed from gray jay, but Dale thinks the former adjective was fitting. "Most of its body is shades of gray with some white," he says. "There are different subspecies that have different physical traits, but most of them have some lighter coloring on their foreheads, upper breasts and throats, each with a darker streak that starts at each eye and goes back."
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