Here is a student working on one of my butterfly paper crafts. I hear that they kids really enjoy them and learn about butterflies and butterfly flight using them. I usually recommend that the students compare the flight of the papercraft to the flight of a real butterfly. It gets the kids outdoors looking for and really watching butterflies. Different butterflies have different flight patterns, also, so it gets them thinking about that if they see more than one species. It is a great learning tool, but of course, I am a bit biased.

Habitat

Two of my neighbors are redoing their parking strips. Or at least, they removed all the plants that were there. In both cases, they removed butterfly habitat, although I am sure they didn't realize it. The strip with the stepping stones had a beautiful patch of milkweed. I had never seen Monarchs in it, but still, I enjoyed the foliage and flowers and it gave me a chance to dream about the butterfly possibilities. The other dirt patch used to have a very healthly stand of plantain. I even saw a buckeye laying eggs. I had visions of caterpillars in September. Now, they are gone and I am sad.

Spider

These cabbage white butterflies were caught in a spider web. What a smart spider, building a web near the nasturtiums, where cabbage whites spend the day! I debated about leaving the butterflies for the crafty spider. After all, she had put a lot of work into the web and deserved her catch. But I felt more sorry for the butterflies than the spider, so I released them, all the while feeling guilty for messing with nature. Oh well........

This is a big year for California Tortoiseshells. These pictures were taken right in my neighborhood. Two people have told me about caterpillars in the ceanothus. I am going to have to find those plants and photograph them next year. Plenty of ceanothus around, I am glad that it is actually supporting butterflies.

So cold today! The baby phoebes were supposed to be out learning how to fly and catch insects, but after a few tries, they cuddled up on the fence instead. Most of the students in my butterfly class showed up in spite of the cold. We didn't see many insects. We did see a few young pipevine swallowtail caterpillars. We looked at all the plants in the butterfly garden at Tilden, and Andy talked about them. After about an hour the class left and Andy and I went for a walk. It was lovely, but cold.

Sailing

Today, I went sailing on the bay with some friends. Perfect weather and nice breeze. So lovely! No butterflies flying above that salt water, but there were some on Angel Island: pipevine swallowtails, red admirals. I've posted a photo of a lady. And I also saw a California Sister but was unable to get a picture of it.

Spring Day

Today Andy and I went to Willard Middle School for Spring Day. The students get to do fun activities and earn tickets to buy snow cones and other food. Andy brought butterfly eggs, caterpillars and chrysalids and explained the butterfly lifecycle to anyone who would listen. I made tiny butterfly kites with the kids. An hour turned out to be plenty of time to make the show off the insects and make the kites. And we got strawberries and muffins for our effort. One science teacher asked us to come in and give a presentation, so I think I will be back at Willard soon.