Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
padfield wrote:It looks like continental swallowtail to me, too, Susie, hence my question. Perhaps they're easier to rear than British swallowtails, taking a much wider range of foodplants. And, as Gibster says, it would perhaps be inappropriate to sell British swallowtails willy nilly at an event like that, though I know British swallowtails are quite widely bred.
Guy
Thanks, Guy.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
What will become of them then? Released to roam the countryside or lepidopteral house pets for the rest of their days?
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
House pets. I wouldn't release them because (a) they may carry lurgies and (b) it would confuse the records of BC if someone recorded them as migrants.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Swallowtail number two has just hatched and I don't think number three is far behind
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Nice of you to go out of your way to post about what you thought was my mistake in my diary but I think I know what I meant, thank you.
It is photographed on bowles mauve but it didn't feed on it. It has been feeding on a buddliea called honeycomb.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Where ever they want within the confines of the kitchen and dining area. So far they have chosen to roost on the branches of the buddleia in the vase.
What's your point with these questions, David?
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Just interested to know. I've never kept butterflies in the house.
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Okey dokey. Well fire away if you have any more in that case.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
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Here's a question: how do you stop the butterflies heading straight for the nearest bright window and battering themselves against the glass? My experience of butterflies indoors is that they invariably make straight for the light, regardless of nectary inducements to do otherwise.
Dave
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For some reason they haven't tried to do that, even on Monday when it was very sunny. Curious now I think of it. The flowers are right next to the window and they seem content to perch on that when not flying or the white curtain next to the window. If they do start battering themselves I do have netted containers they can go in.
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Your own private tropical butterfly house eh Susie? Good for you. It makes a change from keeping land snails, cockroaches, scorpions or tarantulas. In fact it's no different from keeping any other insect or invertebrate in captivity or as a pet.
Fingers crossed you achieve a pairing.
Piers.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
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There is only one male and one female so far. He's a pathetic specimen in as much as he doesn't seem interested in mating. He spends most of his time sitting on the buddleia or feeding although at the moment he is sitting on the bottom of the ceiling light.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
When they're not feeding, what do they do? Are they doing circuits of the room or just lazing about?
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.
Piers wrote:Your own private tropical butterfly house eh Susie? Good for you. It makes a change from keeping land snails, cockroaches, scorpions or tarantulas. In fact it's no different from keeping any other insect or invertebrate in captivity or as a pet.
Fingers crossed you achieve a pairing.
Piers.
Totally agree with Piers on this one!
Good luck Susie. There is always a chance you've had a pairing without seeing it.
Diary entries for 2011 have been archived. If there are missing images in this post, then they can be found in this archive if one exists. All archives can be found here.