Butterfly Farms

We've both always loved butterflies and have tried to make our front yard into a garden with food sources for butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, so we went up to see the butterflies at Butterfly Farms in Vista recently.

Butterfly Farms

Most of the butterflies they have, both inside and outside the enclosure, are native to Southern California.

Monarch

Of course there were plenty of Monarchs enjoying the abundant Asclepia.

Gulf Fritillaries on Lantana

I was surprised to see how popular the Lantana was with the butterflies; we ripped out all the overgrown Lantana in our yard long ago, but the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies were all over the Lantana shrubs in this enclosure.

Indra Swallowtail

An Indra Swallowtail (Papilio indra) also found the Lantana attractive.  And a couple of Indra Swallowtails even found each other attractive.

It was an interesting place.

A World Without Butterflies

Gulf Fritillary

We get a lot of pleasure watching the butterflies in our garden, hopefully enjoying the various butterfly-friendly plants we've included in the garden.

The other day while I was looking in vain for Monarch caterpillars, I did see several other species, including a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), a Fiery Skipper and one of the yellow Sulphur type butterflies, probably a California Dogface (Zerene eurydice), although it was moving too fast for me to get a good look at it.

I found that very encouraging after the absence of Monarch caterpillars.

Painted Lady

A world without beautiful butterflies would be too bleak to contemplate.