Today in our garden I saw our first Monarch butterfly for 2013. I am outside a lot so it is a concern. We have thousands of milkweed plants on our farm so you would think we would have seen a few before now. In any case, in the mist of dozens of swallowtails this morning a monarch flew in to check out our coneflowers, late blooming butterfly weed and zinnias. Below, alone and relunctantly sharing a coneflower with a Great Spangled Fritillary.
This morning several silvery checkerspots were also working the coneflowers. Their larva food sources are wingstem, asters and black-eyed susans. All of which are in abundance in this area ... especially wingstem.
A hornworm on one of our tomato plants this morning covered with parasitic braconid wasp larva/cocoons.
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