February 2021 Sightings

I now have two cabbage whites that showed up in my garage. I placed them in my butterfly cage with sugar water in my laundry room to try to keep them alive as long as I can!

[Interesting! Good luck with this effort, which will be a challenge at this time of year. Here's some info from the "Keeping Insects" website:

"The Cabbage White butterfly eats cabbage when its still in its caterpillar stage. As an adult butterfly it eats nectar from flowers. In captivity you can feed it sugar water.

"Adult butterflies drink nectar or sugar water with their long tongue. If you do not release the butterflies, you should feed them with sugar water. Mix 1 part sugar or honey with 7 parts water and stir until all sugar is dissolved. Put the sugar water in a plastic cup and cover it with a thin mesh, for example a mosquito net. The water level should reach to around 1 cm under the mesh. Place this cup inside the butterfly environment. The butterflies will sit on the mesh and stick their tongue into the sugar water. They can drink without them falling into the sugar water. Replace the water every day as it will spoil."

jc

Brought the roosting Mourning Cloak out for a February picture. It will be interesting to see how warm it needs to be for it to break dormancy.

[Intriguing! Let us have an update when you have the chance. jc]

Mid-morning, low 50's and full sun although there were still patches of snow. After being unsuccessful trying to get a photo of the comma, I was not going to let the second anglewing get away. It flew up and down the road, sometimes landing in the woods. After 5 minutes, I thought I saw it land and snapped a long distance shot. Sure enough, I could find the bug when I blew the shot up. Eventually, I approached close enough to get an identification shot.

[Two FOYs back-to-back. Good work! jc]

Checked on the MC when I got home from work and it was out of the barn. Guess 55 degrees was the number. I also saw 10 moths of 2 species at the sugar bait after sunset. The picture is of a Shivering Pinion, Lithophane querquera.