Beautiful Swallowtail butterflies have been visiting here every day.
See the tiny pearl-like dots on the leaves? They are eggs laid by the Swallowtail butterflies.
Nestled in the center of a leaf, you can see the larvae that hatched from the egg.
And so begins our dilemma. The tree that attracts all these butterflies is a Marshall Seedless ash tree. A year ago at this time the tree was in a pot by our west deck. Last fall it was planted between the house and the shop. We were thrilled that it came back this spring after being practically denuded by the huge caterpillars that grow from the egg/larvae of the Swallowtail butterfly. You can see from last years post that they were pretty hard on the tree - http://tramps-camp.blogspot.com/2011/08/lumberjack-caterpillars.html
So what do we do now? Do we let them take over the tree again or do we remove them? We could "grow" them in a large aquarium with other dining options for them. I am just not certain that is something I am up to tackling right now. What would you do??
3 comments:
I would leave them there, like everything else these days in the animal kingdom, they are struggling to find the appropriate environment/right food sources to survive, the tree will grow back again.
Let the swallowtails have the tree is my opinion.
The tent caterpillars have totally stripped lots of alders in Powell River. They say that a healthy tree can stand the stripping, but this year was one of those population explosion years. Maybe you could compromise and remove some of the eggs and let the rest mature. In that way, maybe a small tree has a better chance. Just a thought. - Margy
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