Bindweed Butterfly Bonanza
We have a rented house, and there's bindweed on the property, climbing through the lilac bush in the front. I meant to stay on top of it, and cut it down this year...really I did.
But, somehow, I just never got around to it, and now the bindweed has rushed over the top of the large lilac bush, and gone into bloom.
The variety of insect life drawn to the blooming bindweed is staggering. A huge range of sizes of bees, wasps, and flies are visibly circling the bush, in constant motion. But the true stars of this feast are the butterflies.
I never expected that the humble and much-maligned bindweed could prove to be a better attractant for butterflies than the clover, mints, and butterfly weed around the porch, but it's drawing butterflies from miles.
So far, I've identified silver-spotted skippers (dozens of them), Monarch butterflies, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, and the impressively beautiful agricultural pest, the Giant Swallowtail. Not just one of each, but pairs, courting around the bush and through the yard, spending hours fluttering from flower cluster to flower cluster, drifting away to explore, and then returning. There are other butterflies as well, that I haven't yet managed to identify, due to their speed, and the fact that blooms are at the top of the tall bush, and I would need a ladder to get close to them.
The rest of the yard is still drawing cabbage whites, and diminutive tailed blues, as well as a few small orange and dark-colored skippers that won't allow me to approach closely enough for a photo. Dragonflies and damselflies abound, including common white-tails, and many others I haven't managed to identify yet. Between the nearby flooding, and our somewhat lax yard care, our yard is abundant with an amazing variety of insect life, and I can't say that I'm one bit sorry about that.
