Chickadee Photo Art

Monarch Butterfly – life stages

// August 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Dragonflies-Butterflies-Moths, Insects, Recent Posts, Urban Nature

Welcome back to my website & thanks for visiting !

Considered one of the most beautiful butterflies – thus the name “Monarch”.  Monarchs will lay eggs on milkweed plants.  I planted milkweed to attract them and it worked.  The above photo from my garden – a Monarch on a coneflower.  The caterpillars grow and eat the milkweed leaves and then crawl up to a suitable place where they hang in the chrysalis stage.  Right now there are about 15 caterpillars happily chewing on the milkweed plant.  The are four generations each summer and only the fourth lives to make the migration all the way south to a forest in Mexico.  Try “googling” the Monarch butterfly to read about this most fascinating insect, their life cycle and amazing annual migration.

Below:  Monarch caterpillar feeding on a milkweed plant. They grow extremely fast in this stage.

Below:  Monarch chrysalis.  They are a very beautiful green colour with some gold trim.  If you look closely on the right hand side you can see the faint outline of the Monarch’s wing inside the chrysalis.  I will post photos of the developing chrysalis as it develops at a later date and hopefully of the butterfly emerging as well.

Enjoy!

~Sharon

What’s in Your Backyard ?

// July 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Birds of Manitoba, Dragonflies-Butterflies-Moths, Insects, Wildflowers

You don’t have to take a trip to see nature because it is always around us even in our own backyards.  You can plant certain flowers that will attract butterflies ( Monarchs like the milkweed plant ), others will attract hummingbirds and so on.  Today a few photos from my backyard as I was  outside enjoying the sun and puttering in the garden for a few hours.

Above:  Butterfly gathering nectar from a Joe Pye plant      Below:  A House Wren chattering on the garden fence.

Below:  A few photos of bees gathering pollen

Below:  Not sure if this is a wasp or bee but if was flying around with a large piece of plant leaf and then landed.  A leaf-cutter of sorts.

Below:  This is a domestic garden plant that was tagged “Love in the Mist” when I bought one a few years back.  It seeds itself every year and produces these beautiful delicate flowers in blue and purple tones.

Enjoy!

~Sharon

Dragonfly Hatch

// October 14th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Boreal Forest, Dragonflies-Butterflies-Moths, Insects

There are three stages in the dragonfly life cycle – egg, nymph and the adult dragonfly. Today’s blog features dragonfly nymphs. They look absolutely alien! The eggs are laid in water and the nymphs live in the water only to come up on shore on a suitable day for the adult dragonfly to emerge and unfurls its beautiful translucent wings.  These photos were taken in June alongside a small creek and there were many nymphs on the grass in various stages of emergence.  It was quite fascinating to watch. It looked to be a struggle crawling out of the casing and took quite a while but, after freeing themselves of the nymph casing, the dragonfly would slowly unfurl its wings and then proceed to dry them before taking to flight.

Below: The empty nymph shells stuck to the side of a boathouse.

Enjoy!

~Sharon