Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Caterpillars and a Damselfly

It's the season for Monarch caterpillars to be munching away on the Milkweed, and we have several just outside the living room window.  Then a neighbour who's one of my loyal blog readers brought me in a quite dead insect they has taken from a spider web at the church.  It turned out to be a damselfly.

A Monarch or two have been dancing through the air over the backyard garden, but never stopping for long enough for me to get a picture.  But I guess they do stop long enough to lay eggs on the Milkweed, though they feed on various different flowers.  This is a picture I borrowed from a previous year.

This is the first photo Mrs. F.G. took of a Monarch caterpillar munching its way up a leaf.

This is all I got a shot of that morning, a little head emerging from beneath the leaf and munching away.

The next day I got a couple of much better shots.  These caterpillars are getting fairly large and will soon be hanging under the leaves as a chrysalis.

A final shot, those yellow, black and white stripes always marking Monarch caterpillars.  I am still very pleased with my new camera's zoom ability.

And this is the insect a neighbour brought over, quite dead, but interesting to look at up close.

Look at the blue colour on that long narrow abdomen.

So I looked up Damselflies, which I thought it was, and confirmed my suspicion.  Damselflies are light, narrower than Dragonflies, with smaller eyes.  It fit all the pictures.

However, when I tried to narrow it down to a species, I was stumped.  There are 23 species of Damselfly in Ontario, and a lot of them feature the colour blue!  I can rule out about half if them, but that leaves me with a dozen to choose from.  So you'll have to be happy with knowing it's a Damselfly.  And thanks Ron.


17 comments:

  1. What vivid blue for the body, and those delicate wings. Monarchs, did I read somewhere they are getting low in their population, due to the plants they feed on being in short supply? I read that the count in Mexico where they winter over was way down on previous years , but that was some years ago.How does anyone count monarch butterflies in huge numbers?? Maybe you will have some good reasons as to how they do this.So here, this summer, I will plant lots of goodies for their food.

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  2. I've never seen a Monarch caterpillar (or just not noticed them). Mind you I'm not sure I've seen a milkweed either. The damselfly is an interesting looking bug. I bet you could lie about the species and none of us would be even the wiser. :p

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  3. I believe I read somewhere that damselflies fold their wings when they alight on a stem of something. Poor little one has no control of her wings any more. Yes, I also read that Monarch butterflies are now an endangered species. I too love your new camera on your phone! Keep on taking pictures!

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  4. Great pictures, especially of the Monarch caterpillar!!

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  5. Your cellphone's camera does a nice job. The deceased appears to be a male ebony jewelwing damselfly; the females have more subdued colors and a white spot on the end of the wing -- he was beheaded at some point and has lost several segments from the end of the abdomen.

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  6. Awesome photos of the caterpillar!!

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  7. Wow, Woody seems to really know his stuff. I was in an industrial area off highway 400 this morning and there were several Monarchs flitting around where I was parked. A good sign.

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  8. The Monarch caterpillars look hand painted!

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  9. I was thinking about getting a new Samsung phone and also a new sony camera to use on vacations, and after seeing the pictures you have been taking with with your SR 22, I decided I could combine two things in one and went ahead and got a new SR 22. It will take as good a pictures as I will ever need and will be easier to carry around than a heavy SLR. Thanks for showing us what a really good camera phone cn do.

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  10. Three years ago I was delighted to witness Monarchs emerging on three different occasions. Of course I posted about it. This was the first https://anvilcloud.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-release-of-monarchs.html

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  11. Fabulous photos of those caterpillars. And I also read that monarchs are now an endangered species, so I'm happy to see you still have some. :-)

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  12. It has been many decades since I last saw a Monarch caterpillar but I recognized it right away when I saw your pictures. It seems once again this summer that Monarch butterflies in our area are about as rare as hen's teeth. I could even push that a wee bit farther and include all butterflies. Just not seeing them like other years.

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  13. Nicely done with your phone! I spotted my first caterpillar this week. We seem to be on a later flight path. Congrats!

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  14. I have been searching for Monarch eggs or caterpillars over the last couple of weeks but my milkweeds are caterpillar free. Not sure why.

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  15. awesome snaps!! i really enjoyed seeing the monarch caterpillar, i too have read about their decline. i have the new iphone and have been using it for a lot of my pictures. the zoom capability is awesome and i think it is taking better pictures than my camera!!

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  16. I see damselflies around here too and just kind of ignore them. Since we are having any sightings of any good butterflies I should appreciate seeing them more. I need to get some milkweed plants.

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