Surprise Visitor

Last year I found caring for Monarch butterflies to be stressful, having to buy more plants to keep them going, only to have all but one die before the caterpillars pupated. The plants died off in the winter and I decided that was that. However, today a visiting butterfly found a mostly bare plant that had pushed up through a big Viburnum bush. She laid eggs all over it, masses of them! There are hardly enough leaves to support one caterpillar, let alone a host of them. I would have been happier if she had just sailed by.

Meanwhile, among the artichokes, a praying mantis nymph was puzzled by what landed on her leaf. My son says it’s a case of fly tipping. See extra shot.