Butterfly House Finale (2)

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There were still plenty of butterflies and moths to see in the last weeks of the season in the Roston Native Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden. I’ll miss the conversations with visitors and the quiet times with the butterflies. This year there were times when it was too busy to take pictures and other times when I decided I just wanted to watch the butterflies fluttering or the caterpillars eating. Now the house is closed, and I am savoring the pictures of the past few weeks.

The weather is saying warm and I have fall nectar plants in my yard, so I anticipate seeing butterflies around my house for a while longer. But we are on the glide path to winter and no butterflies. I often feel that the annual pause in seeing butterflies make their reappearance in the spring more precious.  

Butterfly House Finale (1)

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The Roston Native Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden closed for the season as of last Sunday. There were still plenty of caterpillars even in the last weeks – tiger swallowtails, giant swallowtails, red spotted admirals, black swallowtails, cecropias, and monarchs.

There were a few chrysalises and cocoons too.

During my last two Sunday morning shifts there were about 90 people that visited. It helped that the temperatures had cooled down a little from the 90s earlier in September.

3rd week of Master Naturalist Core Training

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The third week of core training focused on volunteering. Two helpers unexpectedly did not show up so the class was a little stressful for me but still turned out to be an excellent class for the students!

I picked up three tables needed for the field trip from our storage unit before the class and they were dirtier (dust and cobwebs) than I expected…so I got help from my husband to get them unfolded and sprayed clean on our driveway the next day!

The field trip was on a Saturday. After a lecture about how the native butterfly house is sustained, there were 4 rotations where the students shadowed a volunteer….as close as we could get to hands on volunteering. The 4 rotations were:

The butterfly house

The caterpillar café – where we all saw lots of caterpillars and plants they need…and I took a lot of pictures

The bison table (which we do as a school program or a table at festivals). The only picture I took was of the front lower jaw!

Rotten logs (which we do on a tarp on the ground or a table – usually at an outdoor event where there will be lots of children)…and always find a lot of critters….and details for logs themselves.

At least one of the groups got to release a tagged monarch butterfly! And several bought some plants that were on sale in the gardens during the lunch break.

Zooming – September 2026

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It was very hot in our area of Missouri in September (near Springfield)…but I still enjoyed being outside for visits to central Missouri and the initial field trip with the Master Naturalist core training class I am helping run. The Roston Native Butterfly House, local parks and my house also offered some interesting subjects to photograph!

Butterfly House Trees

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I decided to document the trees in the Roston Native Butterfly House during one of my recent shifts. All of them are there to provide food for certain caterpillars. So here is a tree tour of the house…starting on the right side as you enter the trees are

Wafer ash for Giant Swallowtail caterpillars

Hackberry for Hackberry Emperor caterpillars

Spicebush for Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars

Pawpaw for Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars

False Indigo for Silver Spotted Skipper caterpillars

Black Walnut for Luna Moth, Polyphemus Moth, and Red Banded Hairstreak caterpillars

(turning back toward the front of the house…looking at the trees on your right)

Tulip poplar for Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars

Black Willow for Red Spotted Purple caterpillars

Of course, there were lots of butterflies and a just-emerged Cecropia Moth that I couldn’t resist photographing too!

Butterfly House Training

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Volunteering at the Roston Native Butterfly House at the Springfield MO Botanical Gardens is my favorite volunteer gig from May-September. Last week was the final training….in the butterfly house itself.

The late afternoon was breezy and a little chilly when I arrived at the park. I wore a sweater. The gardens on the way to the butterfly house were looking good – trees leafed out…past the spring bulb flowers and waiting for the summer bloomers.

Inside the house there were tiny caterpillars to discover. I didn’t have equipment to attempt to photograph them….but I did make a map of the trees in the house. The photos are of the largest ones: tulip poplar (for tiger swallowtail caterpillars) and pawpaw (for zebra swallowtail caterpillars). The others are wafer ash, spicebush, black willow, and false indigo bush.

Some butterflies were brought in but not released to the house while we were there. They were not very active because of the temperature. There are enough flowers blooming for nectar – butterfly food. There were even some milkweed plants with buds that will be fragrant and full of nectar when they bloom.

I missed the part of the training that was held in the Botanical Center (since I went straight to the butterfly house) but it was evidently the same as last year. The procedures for opening and closing were reviewed in the house…and tips for handling various situations. Even though the way we sign up for shifts is new…the skills I learned volunteering last season and in previous butterfly houses are still pertinent.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2026

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Some different types of celebrations in March…

 

Dad surviving a hospital admission. My sisters and I celebrated that my dad survived an awful hospital experience (bad reaction to drugs he received there, lack of attention to his response to medications and delaying administration of his regular medications). He is back in his memory care residence now and much happier. We have transitioned him to palliative care based on his experience.

Springfield Botanical Gardens. Many of the plants were still in winter form…but there were enough early spring flowers to celebrate the season.

Red-bellied woodpecker. We celebrated when one of the birds came to our feeders. It doesn’t happen often!

Big buds on the red buckeye. The buds on the red buckeye were an early celebration of spring. They were large and they were open with the leaves beginning to expand when there was a hard frost and the celebration turned to sorrow; I am monitoring the plant to see how it recovers.

Earthworm parade. I celebrated that it rained…and the earthworms made a parade across a sidewalk to find new homes.

George Washington Carver National Monument. My husband and I celebrated an early spring day with a day trip to the monument.

Garage door fix. The spring on my garage door opener broke and I was worried that I’d be parking in the driveway for a few days...but a company was able to make the repair the same day we called. I celebrated the quick response!

The Plastic Detox. I viewed the documentary available on Netflix…celebrated that there were indeed babies at the end!

Sunrises. I was in Texas for 5 days….and 4 of those days had wonderful sunrises. I celebrated with my dad in the hospital on 3 days and the last one I was in a hotel! Noticing the beauty at the beginning of the day always lifts my mood.

Baked chicken salad. Days are getting warmer and I find myself wanting salads more than I do in the wintertime. I celebrated combining veggies from the crisper…an apple…diced slices of lemon (including the skin) and green salsa --- with chicken baked in balsamic vinaigrette. Yummy!

Zooming – March 2026

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We had some warm days….and then some cold days. At the end of the month, I am hoping that my red buckeye is not permanently damaged; its leaves were beginning to enlarge when a hard frost came. It was an interesting month for travel (to Texas and a day trip to the George Washington Carver National Monument…and the yard was beginning to show signs of spring (bulbs and the boxwood bloomed). I enjoyed all my forays outdoors.

Springfield Botanical Gardens (2) – March 2026

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Continuing the images from my walk around the Springfield Botanical Gardens recently….

This post is about the trees.

The deciduous magnolias were blooming. I enjoyed zooming in on the buds and flowers.  There was a little breeze, so the petals were in motion…and the shadows were changing too. Fortunately, it was sunny and the camera was fast enough to stop the motion.

One pine had many cones. Perhaps I should have picked some up that were on the ground to add to my collection of materials to use for tree talks/tabling.

There were other trees too that I photographed – showing how different trees were at different stages of development.

My final stop was near the Botanical Center Building – the deck area still under renovation evidently. I wanted to look at the succulents in the beds near the building. They do well through winter and, if anything, look more colorful having survived the cold!

It occurred to me that this is the time of year to visit the garden frequently to keep up with spring development.

Springfield Botanical Gardens (1) – March 2026

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The Springfield Botanical Gardens are full of new beginnings in March. I took a walk around them on a sunny day – using by bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) on a monopod. The monopod worked great as a hiking pole, so my back didn’t hurt; I did have to clean mud off the tip though!

The daffodils and other bulbs are the biggest splashes of color. They are in clumps of mulched beds…sometimes with a rock to provide a backdrop (texture and color that is always there no matter the season). My favorites were the large pink hyacinths. They don’t grow as well now as I remember them from years ago evidently since there were some that looked scraggly; there weren’t enough to make give the garden their smell either.

There were other flowers of the season in the grassy areas – small but worth noticing…and dandelions are blooming as well. I have declared a truce with dandelions – won’t cultivate them but I won’t poison them or dig them out either; I might even eat some leaves of the ones that grow in my yard where I know they haven’t been sprayed with anything.

The Lenten roses/hellebores were blooming. They are always some the first blooms of the year.

There weren’t many insects active….but I did see a cabbage white butterfly!

Stay tuned for the trees I noticed while I was walking around the gardens in tomorrow’s post.

My Favorite Pictures from 2025

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I forced myself to pick 2 pictures from each month to feature in this post. They were taken in my yard, at the Springfield Botanical Garden (and the butterfly house and Japanese Stroll Garden there), my daughter’s yard and during my travels for prairie walks in SW Missouri, to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in NW Missouri, Chicago IL, Branson, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. They are all taken outdoors! Enjoy the slideshow.

Gardens Aglow

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The seasonal Gardens Aglow lights are a wonderful evening activity. They continue until December 28th (check the website for dates and times) at the Springfield Botanical Gardens’ Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Online tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for children…but admission is free to Friends of the Garden or Springfield Sisters Cities Association! My husband and I are Friends of the Garden so the passes for the show I got in the mail because of my volunteering at the garden were given to 2 of my daughter’s students.

Our first visit was last week (we’ll probably go again before the end of the season). It was a cold and cloudy day, and we opted to arrive shortly after they opened at 5; we were early enough to park in the parking lot rather than the grassy area parking which is opened for the event. It didn’t take long before it was fully dark. I opted to use my small Canon PowerShot SX730 HS in night scene mode (stacks images in the camera) rather than my phone because the camera is easier for me to hold for the duration of the longer shot and the mechanism to zoom is easier too. There seemed to be a higher density of lights than I remembered from previous years. It is always well done; I liked that they have added lights to direct people to stay on the paved walkways…less chance of people trampling plants in the dark.

I enjoyed getting shots of lights and their reflections in water. There were plenty of opportunities!

Our walk took a little under an hour. The temperature was in the low 40s, and I was comfortable in my winter gear. My daughter bought some spring rolls at one of the food trucks – which she enjoyed but her hands got cold without gloves; she bought some hot cider just before we left to warm up her hands and to drink on the way home. My husband said his coat was great, but his gloves and shoes were not quite warm enough. It was a good first test of our winter clothing selections.

Zooming – October 2025

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Seventeen pictures for October. They are mostly from Missouri and some left from September in the Chicago area.

I’m saving the fall foliage pictures until November; I suspect that the fall will be subdued because it has been so dry since mid-summer but I am on the lookout for opportunities to photograph the occasional spectacular tree!

Looking back at previous Octobers…

In 2024, I was enjoying Missouri Master Naturalist Core Training and an Identifying Woody Plants field class at Missouri State University.

In 2023, I made my first visits to the Shaw Nature Preserve and Butterfly House near St. Louis; there was a Chihuly glass exhibit in the Missouri Botanical Garden. My parents were still in their home, and I was enjoying birds in nearby Josey Ranch park.

In 2022, I travelled to London, Ontario with my daughter…passing through Detroit on the way. It was our first fall in Missouri.

In 2021, we made our last visit to Longwood Gardens from our home in Maryland and I photographed a lot of waterlilies. At the time, we didn’t realize it would be our last fall in Maryland.

In 2020, we were still doing most things virtually. Most of the pictures taken at home…a lot of birds at the feeders on our deck and colorful leaves. There was one trip to Conowingo Dam but the only picture in the post is of a stern looking Great Blue Heron.

Butterfly House – September 2025

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I have a shift per week in the Roston Native Butterfly House…and try to take some pictures each time. I generally stop at the beds and rain garden near the Botanical Center before I go to the house.  There are always flowering plants there…and sometimes critters too. I always check the wild indigo in the rain garden….and am waiting for the black seed pods to burst open. There are asters and goldenrod blooming now to feed the late season pollinators.

I unlock the butterfly house, clean the caterpillar frass off the table and sweep the floor before openng at 10. Sometimes it is quiet at first but other days there are people waiting to get in.

During August, the last of the luna and cecropia caterpillars made their cocoons and the Monarch, spicebush and snowberry clearwing caterpillars became the stars of the caterpillar display.

The big moths (luna, cecropia, and polyphemus) were still on display but their eggs are collected/stored until next spring because there is not enough time for the caterpillars to develop and make cocoons before winter.

The shifts in the house seemed busier  this past month so I haven’t taken as many pictures of butterflies and flowers in the house…although I did get a few good macro pictures.

The next post about the butterfly house will be about the end of the season…in early October.

Butterfly House – August 2025

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So many things to see in the Botanical Garden and the Roston Native Butterfly House this month. There are plenty of native plants in bloom in the rain garden on the walk between the Botanical Center and the house….but I just take a quick look since I want a few minutes to get things cleaned up before turning the sign to ‘open.’

Sometimes we find butterflies that have died overnight. I took a picture of one before we put it in the small bin we keep for butterflies that have succumbed. Another morning I found the 4 parts of a cecropia moth’s wings scattered on the floor; maybe a mouse ate the body during the night?

I like to see butterflies getting nectar from flowers…but sometimes it is enough to see them ‘resting.’ There are often fresh zinnias for the butterflies – freshly cut from the Master Gardener area of the Botanical Gardens. And there is always something blooming in the house itself. I like the Zen of the place when there aren’t many people but there is always the magic of a child’s wonder seeing a butterfly in a way they haven’t before.

The caterpillar that was ‘new to me’ this month was a Zebra Swallowtail…large enough to make its chrysalis – picked up off the floor when it was trying to leave the plant!

The moths are easily photographed because they are not very active during the day. The Luna moth is my favorite….but the Polyphemus is beautiful too. They, along with the Cecropia, have large caterpillars that are always interesting to visitors.

Zooming - July 2025

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The places for this month zoomed images include: my neighborhood/yard, Fantastic Caverns, my dad’s assisted living home, Springfield Botanical Gardens, and Lake Springfield Boathouse. It was a good month to be out and about in the morning…before the heat of the day! The early summer flowers doing well: arugula, cone flowers, day lilies, sunflowers, prickly pear cactus, button bush, and Missouri Evening Primrose. Enjoy the July 2025 slideshow!

Roston Native Butterfly House – July 2025

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My shifts at the Roston Native Butterfly House were hotter in July – even though all of them were for the 10-12:30 shift. The high points of the month involved caterpillars.

Two that were new-to-me were the caterpillars for the red spotted purple butterfly (on willow) and the Atala butterfly (on cycad).

At the beginning of one of my shifts, I was cleaning the caterpillar frass from the very wet display table and got a big surprise when I flipped the lid on the trash to throw away a messy paper towel and discovered a very large cecropia moth caterpillar on some black cherry leaves that just happened to be in the trash. I quickly scooped the leaves and caterpillar up and put them back with the other cecropia caterpillars…..and the caterpillar began wondering around the table. My assumption is that sometime during the night it wandered off the table and fell into the trash. We eventually put it in the zippered cage so that its walkabout could be somewhat contained! It was probably large enough to be ready to make its cocoon.

I enjoy photographing things in the butterfly house whenever there are few or no visitors there! The cecropia caterpillars in the house toward the end of the month were ones that were raised with my luna caterpillars on sweet gum, and they rejected a shift to black cherry leaves when they got to the butterfly house….so now the sweet gum vase has a mix of luna and cecropia caterpillars.

Springfield Botanical Gardens – July 2025

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We visited the Springfield Botanical Gardens in mid-June….on a cloudy morning. There was a breeze to help make the warm, humid air more comfortable. My husband was keen to photograph insects in flight. It was probably warm enough, but the insects were not as active because of the thick clouds and everything being so wet.

The Botanical Center was our first stop. Then we walked by the rain garden (indigo with pods and golden rod) and down the sidewalk past the Butterfly House and surrounding garden.

The daylilies were blooming profusely and were the main draw for my visit. I started out doing some macro shots with my phone (iPhone 15 Pro Max)

But changed to zoomed images with my small point and shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS). Both cameras captured the water droplets on the flowers.

As we started back toward the car I saw something off the paved walk landing in the grass. It stayed put as I carefully walked over….and got a picture. It was the only large butterfly I saw all morning (other than in the Butterfly House).

Before we left for home, I got a small branch of sweet gum leaves for my luna and cecropia moths.

Zooming – June 2025

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The images I selected for this month’s Zooming post reflect the places I have been recently: the Butterfly House as the Springfield Botanical Gardens, my neighborhood and my home, the Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology in Rolla, the Dickerson Park Zoo, the Schuette Prairie, and the River Bend Nature Center in Wichita Falls TX. That’s quite a lot of variety during a single month! Enjoy the June 2025 slideshow!

Butterfly Festival

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The annual Butterfly Festival was held at the Springfield Botanical Gardens on the second Saturday in June. I volunteered for 2 hours in the Missouri Master Naturalist booth.

There were a lot of people and the children were all working on a passport where they collected a butterfly sticker from the booths they visited. The sticker we had was the pipevine swallowtail. We were completely out of stickers at the end of my shift and there was still 2 hours to go for the festival!

To the side of our booth, we had a small tarp with rotten logs and tools to dig into the logs. The children found snails, grubs, worms, ants, millipedes, spider…and roly-polies! We accumulated quite a collection in the magnifying containers on the table.

We talked the adults about Missouri Master Naturalists and hopefully some people will be interested enough to contact us and participate in our next core training in fall of 2026.