Cloudless Sulphur Congregation

Hello - I am Diane, Gary's wife, and I'm going to interject a few of my photos into the blog. Gary is hog-tied in the basement. Last year we planted 41 new acres of native prairie where row crops had previously grown. We have had spectacular results with the prairie species we planted and also in the numbers of insects we have attracted to this habitat. One lovely visitor is the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly. In our plantings, the Partridge Pea has done particularly well. The Partridge Pea is a larval foodplant for this butterfly. It also will lay its' eggs on Wild Senna and various clovers. So you see, plant a butterfly's larval foodplant and it will come. We have noticed a dramatic rise in the numbers of this species this year. The Cloudless Sulphur in the photo is actually sitting on a stonecrop plant that is in a garden very near the prairie.