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.

Zooming – August 2025

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All the images I selected for this month’s zooming post were from places around Springfield MO and Berryville AR. The subjects were:

  • Juvenile birds (cardinal and robin) and an adult hummingbird

  • Flowers and plants (pokeweed, naked lady lilies, zinnias, crape myrtle, cone flowers, daylily)

  • Caves (Cosmic and Onyx)

  • Caterpillars (spicebush swallowtail and zebra swallowtail)

  • Butterflies and moths (spicebush swallowtail, red spotted purple, cecropia moth, luna moth

  • Juvenile racoon

  • Edge of a golf course scene

The picture of the juvenile robin was taken through a window and with camera settings that gave it a hazy look to capture the ‘feel’ of the day – it was a very humid August day! The one of a bench looking out onto a golf course was an attempt to capture the morning mood as we prepared to leave our Berryville hotel; it was a warm, sunny morning…full of bird songs…a good beginning of the day.

Enjoy the August 2021 slide show!

Luna Moths Finale?

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Back in the first week of August, a lot of luna moths I had raised from tiny caterpillars to cocoons emerged within a couple of days.

I had already taken eggs, cocoons, and moths to the Butterfly House, so I simply enjoyed the show…deciding to release the moths near my house. I quickly discovered that the mating moths don’t want to be moved…they stayed in the cage. And then there were eggs on the side of the cage.

I finally had some that were single again to release…although some were still reluctant. They would fly a short distance and not always toward a tree. I managed to move a few from the cage directly to my dogwood tree; it isn’t a food plant for caterpillars, but it did provide shelter for them. Eventually they all flew away.

The release I enjoyed the most was of a female moth that was clinging to my finger. She vibrated in place – revving – and then flew gracefully away and up to perch in a river birch.

I kept the eggs and let them hatch. Several references said that luna moth caterpillars ate maple leaves…so it was something worth trying. They did not eat the maple leaves at all! I was so hoping the maple would be acceptable to them because I have a maple in my yard.

I still have some cocoons that seem to be viable, but they have not emerged yet. I am beginning to wonder if those cocoons are going to not emerge until next spring!

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.

Luna Moths

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There was a pause between my taking the last 4 luna moth caterpillars to the Butterfly House  and Luna Moths beginning to emerge. I kept the cocoons that had been constructed in the first wave in the mesh cage so that when they emerged, I would not find them scattered around the ceiling of my office! Once they started, a few moths appeared every day and I still have cocoons (so there will be more). I eventually managed to get a sequence of a newly emerged to ‘ready to go’ moth. The wings are very compact when they first emerge, and not the characteristic creamy jade color. The females have a large abdomen and thinner (not as feathery) antennae. They all seem to climb upward as their wings begin to expand and change color. The long tails are not obvious at first. Most of the time they finish up on the top or upper side of the mesh cage.

 I experimented with photographing them…trying not to disturb them too much. The best pictures are from opening the cage during the day for a short time and reaching inside with my phone!

The first ones to emerge were males. After a day or so, there were both males and females in the cage…and mating occurred. I took a group to the Butterfly House for their display and for collection of the eggs laid on the side of the cage to be used for a program in August (the eggs will be hatching by then).

One morning I released 8 moths into my neighborhood. They were all grouped in the top of the cage when I went out to our front yard where there is a tree with low branches. One flew out of the cage and away. The other 7 I moved to the tree; some of them flew away for the tree right away. One flew from the tree to the grass…then away before I could move it back to the tree. I left 4 (two mating pairs) in the cage. It was just before sunrise, so I hope they found a good place to spend the day (and maybe for the females to lay eggs).

When I got back indoors, I discovered that a luna had emerged in a bin that contained the cocoons produced later in my caterpillar experience. The plastic bin is not a good place to emerge since the plastic is too slick for the moth to climb. I moved the moth to the cage and am moving the rest of the cocoons to the cage too!

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2025

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July was a great month to be outdoors – even though it was very hot…plenty to celebrate.

Rescuing a large cecropia caterpillar from the trash. One of my morning shifts at the Butterfly House started with quite a surprise….finding a cecropia caterpillar in the trash while I was cleaning up before opening. I celebrated that I happened to look down before I threw in the messy paper towel…and could easily return the caterpillar to the table display.

Luna caterpillars making cocoons. I celebrated when my 40 or so Luna Moth caterpillars started making their cocoons. When they were all large caterpillars, it was challenging to keep them sufficiently supplied with sweet gum leaves.

More and more cocoons…and then I took the last 4 Luna caterpillars to the Butterfly House. I celebrated some quite days with only rustlings from the pupa inside the cocoons.

The first Luna Moths emerging. The first moths started to emerge…3 males in one day! I celebrated that so many of the cocoons seem viable too…so many more of these beautiful moths will be emerging soon.

A late afternoon barbeque picnic and evening mothing. I celebrated with a great meal with fellow Butterfly House docents…and then seeing how lights and sheets in the evening attract moths.

Dayl ilies at the Botanical. I celebrate the profusion of color and form of the day lilies every year about this time.

Finding S. Fred Prince’s The rainbow in the grass; wildflowers of the Marvel Cave Ozark. I was doing my usual look at botanical books for next month and happened upon this beautiful one from the early 1900s about the wildflowers in the Branson MO area….close to where I live!

Seeing cattle egrets. As I drove north from Dallas, I saw a flock of cattle egrets flying over the highway. It must be a good year for producing young.

Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden. My husband and I always enjoy the plantings around the building…and the walk down toward the field of wildflowers. We went early enough in the day that it wasn’t too hot.

Sunflowers at the assisted living home. My sister planted sunflowers in a big pot (and some of the seeds must have spilled because several plants are growing in the soil next to the pot). I celebrated that they are thriving and the memory that my niece brought a sunflower seedling in a cup home from kindergarten, and my mother propagated them along the alley for years. That niece is getting ready to have her second child soon.

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.

Luna Moth Cocoons

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Some of my 30 or so luna moth cocoons are over 2 weeks old now. So far – no moths have emerged, but the pupas are making noises as they move around inside the cocoon! I made a short recording of the small noises that reassure me that they are indeed viable and developing.

The cocoons are optimally silk produced by the caterpillar and sweet gum leaves, but sometimes other things get incorporated – twigs and bits of paper towel (which was on the floor of the bin) are the most common additions. At the time these caterpillars made their cocoons, the bins were very crowded and sometimes two cocoons are side by side…too close to separate without risking damage to the cocoons. It will be interesting to see what happens as all of these emerge.

Sometimes the caterpillars don’t use silk and leaves; they are ‘bare.’ I have three that are like that. They are easy to see moving so seem to be acting like the ones that do have the outer covering. Will they emerge and be healthy? In the wild, it seems like they would be vulnerable to be eaten although if they fell to the ground, they might look enough like poop that they would be left alone.

I have so many cocoons that I will have plenty of opportunity to observe moths emerging….so looking forward to that experience.

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (4)

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July 2 – July 9 with a lot of bigger and bigger luna moth caterpillars and a few cecropia moth caterpillars… an ongoing adventure.

I graduated to two large bins for the 40 or so luna moth caterpillars on 7/2 because the caterpillars seemed too crowded in one.

I moved the cecropia moth caterpillars to are larger bin too. They were still small but were beginning to look colorful…growing well on the sweet gum leaves.

I appreciated my neighbor with the sweet gum tree even more as the caterpillars got bigger. I made almost daily trips to get a bag of leaves! Pretty soon I graduated from my long-handled pruners to a pole saw because all the leaves were higher in the tree. The cecropias were eating well (I could find them more easily once they were in their own bin) and were still small enough to keep up with their food requirements.

One morning I thought I heard noises coming from one of the big luna bins. I made a movie to capture the sound of caterpillars eating (not loud….but I was pleased to capture the sound of caterpillars munching)!

The same day that I heard munching, I started to see some cocoons and noticing how big many of luna moth caterpillars had become.

The next morning I saw one that had changed color…as they sometimes do before building their cocoon.

I thought I left plenty of leaves in the bins for overnight….but when I came downstairs the next morning there was not a leaf left in either bin. It was a caterpillar emergency. I texted my neighbor and cleaned out the bins (put cocoons in a separate bin) and then went to get leaves. Fortunately, most caterpillars survived.

As I was cleaning out the bins, I found another caterpillar that had changed colors and put it in a small bin with violet leaves, and it immediately made a cocoon!

After the caterpillar emergency was dealt with, I had a shift in the Butterfly House. I took two larger caterpillars for the caterpillar display table and 4 cocoons for the display case. The cocoons contrasted nicely with the older cocoons already in the case because the leaf part was still green!

I got a collapsible case to put my other cocoons in so I can watch them emerge….and hopefully share the experience with the family that provided the leaves for the caterpillars.

The cecropia caterpillars will probably go to the Butterfly House at some point and maybe some of the luna moths when they emerge.

It’s been an exciting week…probably the peak sweet gum consumption of this adventure.

Previous Adventures in Caterpillar Care posts

Roston Native Butterfly House – June 2025

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Of course there are butterflies in the Roston Native Butterfly House…

But this post is focused more on caterpillars. The cecropia moth

Has very large caterpillars which are the stars of the caterpillar table!

The luna moths (male with feathery antennae and the female with more thread like antennae)

Also have large caterpillars but they are not quite as large or colorful.

The tiger swallowtail caterpillars have fake eye spots. They are often on the tulip poplar tree in the butterfly house…at eye level with many adult visitors. We sometimes move a caterpillar on the table so that the children can see it more easily.

Learning about caterpillars – and their importance in the environment as food for other creatures (particularly young birds) - is part of the butterfly house experience.

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (3)

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This post is about my adventures in caterpillar care from June 25 to July 1.

The cecropia moth caterpillars (4 of them) were moved to their own bin. They are slower developing than the luna moth caterpillars and started out still having lots of block bristles but had progressed to more colorful instars a few days later. They are still quite small.

My daughter sent me a picture of a ‘wild’ cecropia moth caterpillar on elderberry. Mine are eating sweet gum.  

There are 40+ luna moth caterpillars. They are bigger and go through sweet gum leaves faster. I replenish leaves twice a day in the big bin.

The big bin with a cooling rack to support the leaves works well. I take out the denuded twigs and put in new – using the rack to support the leaves well above the frass level. With 40 caterpillars – a lot of frass accumulates in just 24 hours!

To refresh the bin, I put a layer of paper towel in the bottom of a fresh bin, then move the cooling rack from the old bin to the new. There are always 3 or 4 caterpillars among the frass; if they will crawl onto a leaf, I use that to move them but otherwise, I cut the paper towel around the caterpillar and move it on the paper towel.

With the caterpillars eating so much more, I got some leaves from another sweet gum and also went to the Botanical Garden after a storm and found a branch that had be ripped off a sweet gum….lots of caterpillar food! I am saving the neighborhood tree for when I need a quick food source for the caterpillars. Sweet gum has the advantage of staying fresh for days in a closed bin….although it doesn’t last that long if there are 40 caterpillars in the bin!

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (2)

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My husband handled the feedings while I was in Dallas and Wichita Falls for 3 days; I left him plenty of sweet gum leaves (in the bin and in a vase to be added as needed). He managed although at one point they seemed so hungry that he thought they would run out food. The caterpillars were noticeably bigger with I returned home! I went to get fresh food the next morning…and that is when I started making some changes.

I opted to move the caterpillars to a slightly larger bin with a ruler added to hold the leaves above the coffee filters (and frass that accumulates very quickly). The fresh leaves that the old container held did not last 24 hours! I counted 40+ luna moth caterpillars and at least 3 cecropia moth caterpillars as I moved them on leaves to their new bin. It turned out that the larger bin was not big enough either since the leaves were almost all gone in 24 hours. The bigger caterpillars eat more than the newly hatched ones.

As they passed their 2-week-old mark, I moved the luna moth caterpillars to a large been with a cookie cooling rack to keep the leaves off the bottom. I have a paper towel layer there rather than coffee filters. Sometimes I can stick the twig through the metal grid so that the leaves stand up for easy caterpillar access. When I moved the luna mother caterpillars to the big bin, I counted 50 before I got sidetracked and lost the count! I’ll try to count each time I move them to a clean bin (probably every other day); they like to be under leaves so it is impossible to see most of them just looking down into the bin.

The luna moth caterpillars are now mostly green – which also makes them harder to see! How many do you see in the two pictures below?

When I moved the luna moth caterpillars to the big bin, I gave the cecropia moth caterpillars their own. There are 4 of them. They don’t grow as fast as the luna moths; they seem to like the sweet gum leaves (I tried maple leaves since some references list them as a popular food plant, but these caterpillars were already imprinted on sweet gum so they will continue to get it. The cecropia caterpillars are in the bin that I only used once for the whole group. It should work very well for them until they get very large.

Stay tuned for next week’s post about the continuing adventure.

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (1)

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On the Saturday of the Butterfly Festival at the Springfield Botanical Garden, I got a small bin of caterpillars: mostly luna moth…but a few cecropia in their too. The were tiny. The luna caterpillars had white tuffs of bristles and black stripes. The cecropia were all black and were a little bigger. They had hatched the Tuesday before. There were some sweet gum trees in the garden, so I left after adding a few fresh leaves to the bin.

I had found a sweet gum tree in my neighborhood and the family that owned it had agreed to provide leaves. The caterpillars needed more leaves the day after I got them (even though they were very small there were a lot of them and they were hungry)! I put the bin in my daughter’s old wagon (over 30 years old) and took the caterpillars with me to introduce them to the family with their favorite food tree. We moved them to a new bin with additional fresh leaves that the children of the family retrieved by climbing the sweet gum! The caterpillars began to move off the older leaves to the new ones almost immediately.

A few days later, the caterpillars were noticeably bigger. The luna caterpillars looked greener, less bristles. The cecropia caterpillars were still black. I was glad I had some extra leaves in water ready to feed them. I had gotten better at moving them to a clean bin (coffee filters in the bottom…leaves leaned again the sides to make them easier for the caterpillars to eat).

Stay tuned as the adventure continues in the coming weeks…

Moths at Busiek (vicarious)

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My son-in-law took some of his students to Busiek State Fores and Wildlife Area after dark earlier this month and sent pictures of moths (and other insects) they found there. It was a great vicarious experience!

It was an opportunity for me to check the bug identification powers of my iPhone Photos app as well. It provided an id for most of them: Waved Sphinx, Elephant Beetle (obviously not correct…it should have left this one as ‘bug’, the app might have been confused with having two insects in close proximity in the image), Darapsa Myron (Virginia creeper sphinx or Green grapevine sphinx).

Prionoxystus robinae (Carpenterworm moth or Locust borer), Haploa, Cicindela (tiger beetle).

Conchylodes ovulalis (zebra conchylodes moth), Hypagyrtis unipunctata, mating Malacosoma americana (eastern tent caterpillar).

There were a couple of Luna Moths – these are ones I am familiar with and can identify without help!

The comments in parentheses above are from my attempt to verify the id made by my iPhone Photos app. It made a reasonable id except for the one image where there were two insects which the app couldn’t separate well.

There were three that the app identified as ‘bug.’ I used the SEEK app and a little more research to tentatively identify: grape leaffholder moth and two Anna tiger moths.

Wildcat Glades and Shoal Creek

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An hour into my last road trip to Dallas, I made a planned stop at Wildcat Glades and the Shoal Creek Conservation Education Center. It was shortly after 7 AM and a Monday so the center was not open but my purpose was to just explore the area little….see if it would be worth returning for hiking and photography. I walked around the native wildflower plantings in the Wildcat Glades Friends Group area and then drove around to the Wildcat boat ramp. I was there for about 20 minutes; it was obvious that it would be a great place to visit on summer mornings!

One of the buildings in the friends group area has a mural of wildflowers!

But this time of year, there are real flowers in bloom!

There was a luna moth sculpture in one of the beds.

There was a good-sized stand of milkweed with a monarch butterfly sculpture too. The morning was still cool enough that there wasn’t much insect activity.

There were bluebirds in one of the boxes. A bit of drama: there was a bird chasing a squirrel along a fence top; the squirrel paused…and the small bird rammed into its rump!

When I drove around to the boat launch, there were rabbits at the edge of the road (and on the road). They didn’t seem to be paying any attention at all to my car, so I took a few pictures and moved very slowly.

My husband is amenable to making a field trip to do some hiking and birding in the area so stay tuned for a blog post about a longer visit.

A Year Ago

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What a difference a year makes….

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Last June I made the road trip from MD/PA to MO twice (beginning and end of month) to help my daughter move to Springfield MO. On the first trip we were in one car and I was in the passenger seat when we drove into St. Louis…was able to take a picture.

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The only sightseeing we did that trip was to the Springfield Art Museum when the key to the house my daughter had rented would not open the door and we had to a few hours waiting for the landlord.

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The highlight of the drive leaving Springfield on that first trip was a luna moth at our first rest stop.

On the trip toward the end of the month, we took a break before the movers arrived to visit the Springfield Botanical Gardens….saw zebra swallowtails in their butterfly house and a clever Monarch butterfly life cycle playground.

This June I am not traveling at all because of the pandemic. I am also not volunteering. Last June – between the two road trips – I was volunteering with two organizations: Howard County Conservancy field trips (there was a particularly memorable session with preschoolers learning about trees) and Brookside Gardens in their Wings of Fancy exhibit.

I miss the traveling and volunteering but have so many things I enjoy doing at my house that I am not feeling the pinch as much as I thought I would by this point. I credit the forest view from my house and the pleasant company of my husband and cat too.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing National Geographic magazines. I’m slowly working my way through the digitized versions on Internet Archive (issues from 2009 – 2013). They always have wonderful pictures. So far – I’ve been limiting myself to 1 or 2 per day…giving myself time to savor the stories in each one.

Cat on the deck. Our cat is an early riser but not as early as me. He can be loud if he wakes up and no one is about so I listen for meows when I am out on the deck in the early morning….and encourage him to come out with me rather than waking up my husband. The cat usually settles down for a nap even if the birds are active around the deck. He wakes up and does some grooming when I start moving around…ready to go inside. I took a picture of him as he finished. He doesn’t look like he was ready to move but he got up immediately when I headed for the door.

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The cat is 19 years old and has a cauliflower ear and is missing part of his jaw….still able to go up and down the stairs in our house although he chooses to not do it as frequently as he did years ago.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/9/2020– Macro Luna

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Baking a carrot cake. There is plenty of time to cook these days – a special dessert is always welcome. I opted for a variation of a recipe I found online…with some modifications:

  • Whole wheat flour rather than white

  • Heaping teaspoon of cinnamon

  • ½ cup less sugar since I was using applesauce and sweetened coconut

  • No pineapple and since I didn’t have the juice I used a tablespoon on lemon juice and then added water to make 1/2 cup liquid

  • No nuts

  • No frosting

  • Made cupcakes rather than a larger cake (We enjoyed cupcakes right out of the oven with butter, later with orange marmalade or ginger preserves…or reheated with butter). I had enough batter left to make a small sheet cake we will probably freeze for later.

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Noticing that the Dark Eyed Juncos are gone. I looked back at our birdfeeder camera and the last day they were recorded at the feeder was 4/6. Last year they left around the same time. In 2018 they were still around on 4/7 but were gone by the 9th.The birds are only in our area for the winter. They may go north for the rest of the year…or just a little west to the higher elevations of the Appalachians.

Blooming azaleas.  Several buds have opened since yesterday. I took pictures between the rain showers.

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Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the second installment of macro photography with our mail-order bugs. Today I am featuring the Luna Moth. It’s the one pictured in the upper right of this picture – our order from The Butterfly Co.

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I saw one at a Missouri rest stop last summer; they can be found in the US east of the Great Plains. So - Luna moths are native to Maryland – like the Cecropia Moth. It’s smaller and not as brightly colored. The antennae of the male Luna Moth are tan colored rather than deep brown of the Cecropia’s. But the antennae are arranged similarly in pairs along the rib.

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The wings have eye spots that are very different than the Cecropia. The Luna’s have a clear membrane in the center! The bit of color seen is the color of the Styrofoam that The Butterfly Co. used to pen the specimens. Also notice that the ‘scales’ on the Luna wing look more hair-like.

The wings are a pale green outlined in brown and with a few brown marks.  The shape of the wing looks like an exaggerated swallowtail.

Luna Moth

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A few weeks ago – a Luna Moth was found on the parking lot of Howard County Conservancy’s parking lot at Mt Pleasant. It was not able to fly very well (probably injured) so was taken into the nature center. The first time I saw it, the long ‘tails’ were still relatively intact…but I didn’t have my camera with me.

The next day it had managed to fly up to the ‘exit’ sign in the nature center and I had my camera. The ‘trails’ had broken off, but it is still a beautiful moth. The creamy green jade color is very appealing.

This was the second Luna Moth for me this year. The other was at a rest stop on I-44 in Missouri back in June.

Both sightings were cause for a little celebration!

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2019

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There was a lot going on in June – the last of the spring field trip season with Howard County Conservancy, the Wings of Fancy shifts, helping my daughter move from Pennsylvania to Missouri….and there were a lot of little celebrations along the way.

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Springfield Art Museum – The first visit to a museum is always the best…because everything is new. This one was no exception….and it was free!

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Luna moth – Finding a Luna Moth at a rest stop in Missouri was the high point of a long day of driving toward home. I celebrated that it was there….and that it was a pleasant surprise in an unexpected place.

First week of CSA – I am always thrilled to get the fresh produce from the Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture. Every meal I prepare with the CSA veggies is a celebration.

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Frogs at Mt Pleasant – Finding the frogs in the small pond is like working a puzzle…you look carefully and finally see….and celebrate. I celebrated along with my hiking groups of elementary aged students too.

Perfect field trip weather at Belmont – I was braced for June field trips to be overly hot…but the weather for all of them at Belmont was near perfect. The pre-schoolers at Belmont celebrated being outdoors and I did too.

My summer office – I moved my home office to a room that doesn’t get direct sun in the afternoon (so doesn’t heat up) and celebrated that the new location provided a better vantage point to the bird feeder while I am working at my computer.

Kombucha – My new food find of the month was mint lemonade kombucha from Wegmans. I didn’t drink the whole bottle all at once…wanted to savor it so I had about 1/3 each day for 3 days. Yummy! I might not get it every week…maybe only for a celebration.

1st monarch butterfly and caterpillar sighting of the year – I celebrated a Monarch butterfly on some milkweed at Brookside Gardens and then a Monarch caterpillar on another milkweed nearby. It’s always a milestone for the butterflies to make it Maryland and start laying eggs. The milkweed is blooming and sweet…plenty of food for the caterpillars.

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1st Zentangle® class is history – I celebrated leading my first Zentangle class…and the tiles created by the students.

Fledglings – I celebrated seeing several fledglings come to our birdfeeder over the past few weeks: downy woodpecker, titmouse, Carolina chickadee, and catbird. Our maple tree seems to be a popular place for many of these birds….or maybe they just come through that tree from the forest and return to the forest the same way.

Luna Moth

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A serendipity find at a rest stop off I-44 in Missouri: a Luna moth! They are such a lovely color – a creamy green jade – and the shape with the long tails is appealing too.

Like most moths, they are sedentary during the day and this one had opted for a window frame near the door to the Ladies room for its daytime roost. It was probably there for the day unless someone disturbed it.  I took out my cell phone to get a picture…and pointed the moth out to the people going by in the few seconds it took for the picture taking. It was still in its spot when I left – unnoticed by most people.

Luna moths are native to North America east of the Great Plains. The adult moths, like many large moths, don’t eat as adults so they are very active at night mating and laying eggs. They only live for 7 – 10 days.

What a great first-stop on a long driving day!