My friend Belle and I went to the new riverfront property today and picked up garbage. There is one area where it looks like a service station dumped a bunch of old oil cans. I plan to get two signs - one that says "NO DUMPING" and one that reads "NO TRESPASSING" and put them in front of the property.

The first wonderful thing I saw by the road when we got there was a buckeye butterfly! 'Haven't seen one of those in a long time. When we walked into the woods, we saw a red-spotted purple leisurely going from bush to tree to bush like females do when looking for the right place to lay an egg.

I saw a piece of Spanish moss - 'hope this multiplies -

I found some pipevine swallowtail eggs that had already hatched on one of the pipevines -

Then, a little later, I found some that look like they've yet to hatch. PVS eggs vary a lot in color, from yellow to dark red, and when I see some this color, I think they've already hatched, but I can see dark spots through a magnifying glass that look to be developing caterpillars. And they don't look broken up - I'll see. I brought these home, since I have a good bit of pipevine growing here -

Another good thing - I found some American lady caterpillar nests on my Helichrysum italicum! I've seen ALs here occasionally, so I have several host plants for them. There is a very large rabbit's tobacco growing on the south side of the house, so it's surprising to see them using the non-native H. italicum, but it grows in front of zinnias, she probably nectared then laid the eggs. It confirms that ALs will use it - it looks like rabbit's tobacco, just has whiter leaves, not as green as the native host.

Things are improving butterfly wise!

Sherry