There's been very little rain since November and so water is scarce. We collect our own water from the rain so the water level in the tank is low and, in fact, we've had to buy water three times since November. As a result my garden is looking a bit sad because there's no water to spare for the plants. Much of the garden has died off, although I do have a few flower plants I'm managing to keep alive in pots. The only butterflies I'm seeing around our property this Summer are Whites. Here's one that visited today. I love Whites as much as all the others and always grow a couple of cabbage plants in the flower garden for them to lay their eggs.
We are heading through a very hot dry Summer in the far north of New Zealand. There's been very little rain since November and so water is scarce. We collect our own water from the rain so the water level in the tank is low and, in fact, we've had to buy water three times since November. As a result my garden is looking a bit sad because there's no water to spare for the plants. Much of the garden has died off, although I do have a few flower plants I'm managing to keep alive in pots. The only butterflies I'm seeing around our property this Summer are Whites. Here's one that visited today. I love Whites as much as all the others and always grow a couple of cabbage plants in the flower garden for them to lay their eggs. 10 days ago a Cabbage White Butterfly caterpillar (Pieris rapae) made it's chrysalis and attached itself to a support stick in one of my plant pots. The next day I took it inside our house and provided it with the same care I give to my monarch butterfly chrysalis's. After 9 days a small and perfectly formed little butterfly emerged. As you can see from my photos, it was rather yellowy in colour. I set it outside on a tiny foam stick and left it to finish drying it's wings before flying off to it's butterfly life. I never did get to see it with its wings open, so I could determine it's sex from the wing markings. I'm pretty sure it was a male.
Today I found another White Butterfly chrysalis, so it's getting the same consideration. Also today I found a little white butterfly newly out of it's chrysalis, but it's wings had dried folded over and it couldn't fly. I have placed this one in the freezer. Butterflies close down and (basically) go to sleep in the cold, so the butterfly would have just gone to sleep and then died as the feezer froze it. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote - "Happiness is like a butterfly. When pursued it is always beyond your grasp but, if you sit quietly, it may alight upon you." 🦋 Ref: Wikipedia Long ago a wealthy old man named Hikaru lived in a village in Japan. Hikaru's house stood just beyond a cemetery, surrounded by a beautiful garden. Hikaru was polite and elegant, never unkind, but he had never married. He lived alone; he seldom ventured out into the village, and his neighbors gossiped about him. "He's a strange one," the women whispered. "So self-absorbed. Too selfish to marry, it seems." "He must be mad," the men muttered. Rumors spread far and wide. In this way, something that was not true appeared to be. Hikaru was far from mad. He was, simply, sad. Many years before he had loved a girl named Akiko. She was beautiful and kind, as lovely as the summer wind, as sweet as springtime pears. Hikaru lived every day longing to see her, and each time he did, he felt as if he were celebrating. He could not wait until she was old enough to marry. He dreamed of the life they would live together. But one day, when she was still a teenager, Akiko became sick, and sadly, she died. Hikaru moved into the house behind the cemetery where she was buried. Forever after he thought only of her. Every day he walked to her grave. Every day he prayed. He took flowers to the grave. He lived in his memories of the days when he had been happy. Time passed. Nearly everyone who had known the story had grown old, and after a while, few remembered Akiko. That is when the false stories began to spread. That is when the children of the village began to believe Hikaru was mad. They took care not to walk too near him, and when they had to pass by his house, they ran as fast as they could. When they saw him in the shops or on the street or in the market, they hurried away, whispering behind his back. There was one boy named Kyoshi who had such a pure spirit that he never believed rumors. Kyoshi only wondered at this man who looked so sad, and he longed to see him smile. Some days he walked past his house and waved, hoping Hikaru would see. But he never did. One year, just after midnight on New Year's Eve, Kyoshi dressed and prepared himself to go make Hatsumode, the first trip of the year to the temple. There he planned to pray for good things in the coming year. Just as he was about to enter the temple, he saw something that took his breath away. The air outside was cold, the wind was brisk, the moon was bright, but there at the door to the temple hovered a white butterfly, its wings shimmering brightly. Kyoshi gasped, "How can you be here in wintertime?" The butterfly flew away, and Kyoshi hurried home. When he rushed in the door, his mother stared at him. His hair was mussed, his cheeks were red with excitement and exertion, and he was out of breath. "My son!" she cried. "What's wrong?" "You'll never believe this," he explained, trying to catch his breath. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes. There was a white butterfly outside the temple." When his mother heard this news, she too lost her breath. "Are you certain?" she asked. "Yes, yes!" he said. His mother took his hand. "Come, we must go to see Hikaru." Kyoshi was very curious. He had never heard his mother speak of Hikaru, and he could not imagine why she wanted to go there now. Perhaps she only wanted to wish the old man a Happy New Year, but why? And what did that have to do with the butterfly? "Why, Mother, why?" he asked as they walked toward the cemetery and beyond, to Hikaru's house. "Wait, we shall see," his mother shushed him. They knocked upon Hikaru's door. After a long wait, they heard footsteps slowly approaching. When at last the door opened, Kyoshi gasped. Hikaru was as pale as a ghost, so thin and frail it seemed he would fall to the ground any moment. "Hikaru," his mother said, "come, we must put you in your bed." The poor man was dying, and as soon as he lay down, he appeared to fall asleep. But just at that moment, to Kyoshi's amazement, the white butterfly appeared in the room. It hovered over Hikaru, and Kyoshi tried to brush it away. "There it is!" he cried to his mother. "The butterfly!" Again he brushed at it with a fan, but the butterfly only swooped around the room and once again flew to the bed. There it landed on the pillow beside Hikaru's head. Once again Kyoshi tried to brush it away, but once again it returned. This time, determined to keep the poor old man from discomfort, Kyoshi opened the door, swatted his fan at the butterfly and guided it outside. The butterfly flew toward the graveyard, and Kyoshi chased after it. On and on it flew, and soon the butterfly and the boy entered the graveyard. There the butterfly landed upon a gravestone. Kyoshi crept close and brushed his hand over the writing on the stone. He squinted and made out the name. 'Akiko'. "What are you doing here?" he asked the butterfly. But a moment later the butterfly had vanished. Mystified, Kyoshi returned to Hikaru's house. "Mother," he said as he raced inside, "the butterfly disappeared." He saw his mother was weeping. "Hikaru has passed away," she said. Kyoshi's eyes widened. "And the butterfly is gone," he said. "Mother, there is a mystery here ..." His mother took his hand and told Kyoshi the tale of Hikaru's love. She had heard the story when she was young, and then she had forgotten it. But the moment she heard of the white butterfly's appearance in winter, she remembered. "Akiko was the love of his life," she told Kyoshi. "But it has been 50 years since she died. On the day she died, Hikaru vowed he would never marry, and as you know, he kept his word. I wish I had not forgotten." Kyoshi listened, and tears fell from his eyes. "He was never mad," he said softly. His mother shook her head. "No, he was only devoted." "And that butterfly was the ghost of his Akiko," the boy said, bowing his head. "And now they will be together. What a wonderful New Year's gift." REF: uexpress.com Click on each picture to see a larger view. Here we go again. Another butterfly out in the wrong season. Don't these guys know it's Winter? Lol This morning we took a walk around our block. We made a late breakfast stop midway at our favourite cafe (of course!). We left the cafe and continued on towards the corner where we often see a lot of butterflies in season. Surprise, surprise - there, flying high up the bank covered with weeds, long grass, various vines, was a lone White Butterfly. During Summer this bank is a great place to spot Common Blue or Long-Tailed Blue Butterflies, and sometimes a few Whites and Monarchs. Bear in mind we are still in mid Winter here however, yes, there was a White Butterfly supping nectar from the few flowers that were in bloom. I have noticed how the butterflies flying at the moment, are going to flowers that you wouldn't usually see them supping from. Perhaps it's a matter of 'needs must', seeing that not many flowers are in bloom and the butterflies do need food for energy. I have never seen a White Butterfly sup from Morning Glory flowers (our New Zealand blue morning glory is Ipomoea indica), yet today there he was. Lovely, isn't it? Click on each picture to see a larger view............. We saw an Australian Painted Lady again, yesterday. We've found a little corner, just down the road and not far from our house, where an Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi) favours. Not only the Painted Lady, however. In the same area we've seen Common Blues, Monarch Butterflies and White Butterflies. They are all enjoying this spot which gets all day sun and has Lantana and Buttercup trees flowering at the moment. Lantana being the main drawcard.
My pictures below show the butterflies we observed in the small sunny area, on the side of the road, covering no more than about 5 sq m. The plants were happily growing on a bank and also on the ground in front of it. The terrain was dry and dusty. The main plants of interest to the butterflies and bees were a Buttercup Tree and the flowering Lantana growing by the roadside. Even the Waxeyes favoured the Lantana and we watched in amusement as one of them wriggled under the leaves to pick off a small ripe black Lantana berry. Click on each picture to see a larger view.... I think White Butterflies are beautiful. Don't you? I must admit, however, that for most of my life until now, I (like many other people) saw them as a pest eating my cabbage and lettuce plants. Since taking up photography in a serious way, and developing a huge love of butterflies, I have seen their splendour through different eyes. From the first day I took a photo of a White Butterfly with my macro lens, my love affair with these much maligned butterflies began. By laying their eggs on host plants for their caterpillars to feed on and grow into butterflies, they are only doing what nature has hard-wired them to do. That we like to eat cabbages, lettuces and similar, is certainly not the butterfly's fault. The small white (Pieris rapae) is a small- to medium-sized butterfly species of the whites-and-yellows family Pieridae. It is also known as the small cabbage white and in New Zealand, simply as white butterfly. The names "cabbage butterfly" and "cabbage white" can also refer to the large white. The butterfly can be distinguished by the white color with small black dots on its wings. They are distinguished from the smaller size and lack of the black band at the tip of their forewings. Ref: Wikipedia The White Butterfly is suspected tho have first arrived in New Zealand in the summer of 1929-30. It was first recorded in Napier in March 1930. It quickly spread throughout New Zealand by the autumn of 1936, however there seems to be 'jumps' in its dispersal over those few years. For example the first specimen in the South Island was in the port town of Timaru, not in the Marlborough region as one would expect by natural dispersion. The logical conclusion is that some specimens where transported around the country along with our shared food of the cabbage family. This is the way it is suspected that the White Butterfly made it to New Zealand (just like North America in the years before and Australia in the years after). No one is sure whether the New Zealand stock came from Hawaii, North America, Europe, Asia or a combination, but most likely it travelled as a pupa in diapause as this would give it the best chance of surviving in a cold store. It is recorded as having up to 5 generations a year in the north and 2 generations in the south. The White Butterfly is considered a pest in New Zealand, so several parasites (Ichneumon's, the wasps Pteromalus Puparum and Apanteles glomeratus) have being released to control it. Unfortunately they are negatively effecting other species of butterfly, especially the Red and Yellow Admirals and the Monarchs. The White Butterfly has characteristics not seen in other New Zealand Butterflies, namely the aforementioned diapause, a seasonal difference in size, and less black markings on the spring generation. The Maori name "Pepe Ma" is translated from the English name. Ref: NZ Butterfly Info |
AUTHOR
Julie Vause
Opua, New Zealand. Keen butterfly photographer and raises Monarch Butterflies for release. " I'm crazy about butterflies and enjoy sharing the beauty and wonder of their transformations." VIDEO
Monarch Caterpillar emerging from egg
Click on video to enlarge
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