Month: September 2017

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Farewell, Sweet Summer

I am a summer person; I was born in August. I love hot sun, steamy days and a garden humming with bees, butterflies and dragonflies. I crave the cricket music of warm nights and I can even tolerate the incessant racket of cicadas for awhile. Each year I promise my husband that I won’t complain and mourn the passing of summer. (His favorite season is autumn.) But, then the bounty of bees, the sweet smell of apples in the backyard, the spicy scent of chives, oregano, hyssop and other herbs all speak to me of the beauty of a season I don’t want to end.

The heartier sort of Minnesotans wish for autumn — and it is beautiful — but autumn’s arrival means that winter’s not far off. Shorts and a t-shirt are plenty of clothing for me, and I choose to be completely unfettered from jackets, boots, ear muffs and mittens for as long as possible.

On this first day of autumn, the temperature is in the 90s, the dew point is in the 70s and there’s a strong south wind. I’ll soak up the heat and humidity and enjoy all of the butterfly and bee activity in what remains of our garden: asters, black-eyed Susan’s, sedum, chrysanthemums, Joe-Pye weed, Japanese anemones and goldenrod. Today is a day of gratitude for summer’s gifts; a day to live in the beauty of the present moment.

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Painted Ladies

Black, white and shades of orange set off the upper wings of a painted lady.

Bright orange, black and white, a brush of pink underneath; these butterflies are too small and swift to be monarchs. Painted ladies (Vanessa cardui) are everywhere; perched on the roof, fence and sun-warmed sidewalk — and especially in the garden (15 to 20 most of the time) on asters, Joe-Pye, sedum and garlic chives. The last time I remember seeing so many was in 2001 or 2002. My neighbor’s sedum ‘autumn joy’ was covered with the butterflies. Our son was little and we sat together in a patch of warm September sun watching the bright creatures sipping nectar.

Why such large numbers? Painted lady populations have cyclic highs and lows. Numbers are high now, possibly linked to good weather in their wintering grounds. Unlike many butterflies in the north, the ‘ladies’ migrate, and that’s happening now. Scientists think that the painted lady has the widest range of any butterfly in the world, living on parts of five continents. In North America, adults overwinter in the southern United States and Mexico, but cannot survive the northern winter.

Four eyespots along the edge of the hind underwing help identify a painted lady.

An easy way to identify painted ladies is to look for four brown ‘eyespots’ along the edge of the hind underwing. The closely related American lady (Vanessa virginiensis) has two large spots in the same region. Another relative, the red admiral (Vanessa atalanta), doesn’t have any spots on the underwing.

A painted lady nectars on native Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum).

I enjoy identifying and learning about all of the creatures that visit our garden. Perhaps, the most satisfying piece is sitting quietly next to the garden and the butterflies, hearing the slight sound of their flickering wings and the hum of bees, and watching the beautiful dance of color as the ladies move among the blooms. If you live in the Midwest, look at your garden, a field of flowers, or perhaps a roadside this weekend, and you might spot the painted ladies.

Garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) are very attractive to the painted ladies visiting our garden.

 

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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies

A female eastern tiger swallowtail – black form (Papilio glaucus) nectars on an ironweed flower.

It was an unexpected gift on an August afternoon: A black eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly, its wings faded and worn, even tattered in places, showing its age.  It settled in for a long drink of nectar from an ironweed flower on the banks of the Snake River in Pine County, MN. We’re more likely to see the yellow form of the tiger swallowtail in the North. The black form occurs much less frequently and only in females. The butterfly’s name refers to the long projections on its tail, which resemble a barn swallow’s tail.

An eastern tiger swallowtail – yellow form nectars on a monarda blossom.

In the northern United States, eastern tiger swallowtails typically fly from mid-May to late August or September. They usually have two broods per summer, and the young of the second group overwinter as chrysalids to emerge the following May. The caterpillars are bright green with two blue eye spots. (They turn brown when ready to form a chrysalis.) They mainly feed on the leaves of trees such as wild cherry, chokecherry, basswood, cottonwood, ash, willow and maple. Adults nectar on many types of flowers, but prefer wild cherry and lilac in spring, Joe-Pye weed and milkweed during the summer.

The name swallowtail comes from the long tail projections that resemble a barn swallow’s tail.

The ironweed on which I spotted it belongs to the Composite family, which also includes coneflowers, sunflowers, daisies, goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed, asters and others. Ironweed is a native perennial, prefers full sun and often grows near marshes, along riverbanks, edges of moist fields, and wet prairies. It’s typically 4-to-6 feet tall and its violet-colored flower clusters are often visited by bumblebees. The black tiger swallowtails seem attracted to ironweed and I’ve seen them on the blossoms in past years, too. I enjoy seeing both forms of the butterfly.

Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata) grows on the banks of the Snake River in Pine County, Minnesota.