Africanaussie

There was sunshine all weekend!  Of course I was out in the garden!  Flitting about were plenty of butterflies, and when this mating pair or orchard swallowtail came close, my very patient hubby got out the camera.  I think we will be seeing some  caterpillars soon by the look of it. The grands were over enjoying running around the garden, and they loved the job of emptying the seeds and peeling the loofas.   They did tend to shake them quite violently to get the seeds out, and I am now noticing loofah plants popping up all over the place.   They are pretty sure that the Easter bunny is going to be paying a visit to Grandma's garden!

Over the weekend two more butterflies emerged.  Now hopefully the lime tree can get back to the job of producing limes instead of hosting catterpillar sleepovers.   This was the first to emerge.  There is a lot of black on this one - it is a male.  You can see the empty dry crisp chrysalis.  In the final days it becomes quite black and I realise it is becoming quite thin and the black you see is actually the butterflies wings.  Arent they the most delicate design on these exquisite creatures?  It reminds me of the stippling technique my daughter used to practice in art clases.  Intricate tiny dots.  Then this little lady appeared!  Isnt she pretty?  this is the female - you can see how much white there is on her wings.  They spend quite a few hours hanging onto the branch before they can fly off.  They seem to be quite wet too, and need to dry off in the early morning sunlight - they always emerge j...

"You are my sunshine,.......... you are my sunshine" has been playing through my head this weekend.  We have been having a few days where the sun is shining during the day although it still rains at night.   The garden is loving it, and look!  a butterfly hatched!  I only found out after the fact, so didn't see it emerging, but there are three empty chrysalis cases.  One has still not hatched, so hope I can catch that one in the act. It is weird that this one has so much white on the wings - maybe this is a female and the other one might have been a male? http://africanaussie.blogspot.com/search/label/orchard%20swallowtail%20butterfly I saw an image like this labelled a female on wikipedia.  In other news around the garden: The cats whiskers are always lovely, and I thought this one looking at its own reflection in the birdbath as a few petals dropped off was rather a nice image. The beehive ginger flower has collapsed under the weig...

One caterpillar disappeared, but there are at last four chrysalis on my little lime tree. The areas where the leaves were chewed off are already sending out little shoots - isn't nature marvellous?  They look for all the world like a little curled over leaf - so easy to miss unless you have been watching the transformation.  I love the raindrop hanging from this one  This was how they started to form the u - shape and I was wondering - does the head fall back and away from the branch once the chrysalis forms? How does the chrysalis form - does the skin just go hard?  Oh no! it is much more exciting than that - this is like dressing for a ball - a butterfly transformation ball, no less! My question was answered one morning (sorry no photos) as I saw this little one wriggling back and forth as the green sheath dropped down over her head.  It was quite an energetic episode and I just stood there transfixed for about a minute. ...

Ok as promised here is part two - some of these photos were taken by my hubby with the old camera.  Thank you my love! Just a few more photos I have to share.. This is when the wings first opened up Here you can see the blue markings just starting to appear  After about three hours it flew off into the garden.  As it settled onto the hibiscus plant you can see the perfectly half rounded shape.  Look how the little dots on the under wings seem to line up with the patterning from the top.  Here you can see the slit in the chrysalis that the butterfly emerged from. Here are the underside of the wings in more detail. Isn't this just the most georgous creature? Ok I am smitten! What a blessing to have witnessed this.

Getting ready for work this morning I glanced at the chrysalis as I always do expecting to see no change and wow! This butterfly was hanging down from the chrysalis slowly drying out its wings and as I understand it, pumping blood into them to strengthen them after being folded up inside the tiny chrysalis. I was expecting the chrysalis to go clear and give me some warning - gosh I would have loved to see it emerge. Silly me, I woke up at 5.30 and lay in bed for half an hour, not knowing what wonders I could be witnessing.  I had almost given up on anything happening to this one.  It  has taken about 3 weeks.  Look at the very visible veins, its poor little heart must be pumping so fast!  the top side of the wings are quite plain with little white spots and just a little dot of red on each wing close to the body. . Isn't it amazing that this was all folded up inside the tiny chrysalis?  Aren't the colours and patterns totally awesome? ...