I’ve had a chance to catch up with writing and since we are now in serious butterfly season, I wanted to post my butterfly sightings from my trip to Disney World during their Flower and Garden Festival.
Despite the huge beds of flowers that should have had the Epcot grounds swarming with bees, butterflies and other nectar-seeking insects, I didn’t see as many as I thought I would. Possibly, it’s because the grounds are sprayed for Florida’s notorious mosquitoes? However, caterpillars and butterflies were thriving inside the Butterfly House exhibit.
You may have been to these traveling exhibits before–always fun to be so close to the butterflies–plus, one nice feature I noticed here was all the butterflies were native!
Queen Butterfly
White Peacock
Zebra Longwing
They were also laying eggs! Tiny to large caterpillars of many types were devouring their host plants. That must keep the gardeners busy at night replacing them!
Orange Banded Sulpher Caterpillar
Monarch Caterpillar
It was fun to peek into the chrysalis houses, too!
And the cycle comes full circle.
I hope my pollinator garden does as well attracting butterflies this summer–so far I’m weeding out Lamb’s Quarters that self-seeded from last year. Plus, the adjacent townhouse cluster has been spraying for mosquitoes. Does your neighborhood?
Leave a Reply