My two granddaughters and I followed instructions and stayed on the paths, didn’t pick plants or pick up caterpillars, and deposited our juice bottles in the recycling receptacle (at home). As we strolled among the butterfly bushes, verbena, pincushion flowers and asters, the plantain, grasses and milkweeds, we spotted a “mock” monarch, a pipevine swallowtail, a cabbage white, a (yellow and black) western tiger swallowtail, and a dozen or more black and orange swallowtail caterpillars dining on the Dutchman’s Pipevine.
Other than enjoying the sight of these beautiful flutter-bys, I had a lot to learn about these beautiful insects. Some interesting tidbits about butterfly behavior: They go “nectaring”, dipping their long tubular tongue into a flower to “eat”. They also dine on rotten fruit and animals droppings. Ewwww! They “puddle”, or sip, dissolved minerals and salts from wet earth. The males “hilltop” by finding a high spot where...