Pamela Moresby
This is more a story of the Monarch Butterflies that I have been raising from small Monarch Caterpillars. These are beautiful but here they are plagued with many dangers from caterpillar to Butterfly.
I followed one around the garden and in the last photos, it is pursued by a paper wasp. The Butterfly got away but this particular Monarch butterfly was a female laying her eggs on my Swan plant (a type of milkweed) and so when she left the paper wasp eats the eggs or lays paper wasp eggs inside an older monarch caterpillar and the young wasps eat the caterpillar and it dies. The paper wasp also eats small caterpillars as well.
They are a plague around here. I would love to get rid of them but you have to find the paper wasps nest. I saw another solution in the garden centre today. A container with sweet sugar water which traps the paper wasp and flies so they get in and can not get out. I thought I may try to use an old plastic milk bottle to do that with little expense.
#1 Monarch Butterfly in flight.
#2 Monarch Butterfly on a Swan plant laying eggs
#3 A closer view of the Butterfly wings
#4 Monarch Butterfly
#5 Monarch Butterfly on Swan plant
#6 Enter Paper wasp
#7 There the paper wasps goes
The paper wasp can sting as well. Not a nice creature.
What I do for the Monarchs is to take the caterpillars inside and feed them on the Swan plant in a bucket . So I have had many hatch and release them outside when they hatch from a chrysalis.
Every small bit of help makes a difference to them.
This is such a magical capture!
Your increasingly sophisticated photography technique can be seen from this photo!