{"id":1045,"date":"2007-06-28T03:22:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-28T03:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:47:49","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:47:49","slug":"puddle-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1045","title":{"rendered":"Puddle party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I mentioned that I went out the other day to photograph insects at two of the local parks. It was a beautiful day to be out, but not so great for taking photos because of a constant breeze. I was hoping to find some colorful butterflies, but other than a few impossible skippers, the butterfly of the day was the cabbage white. They were everywhere, thick as thieves! The red clover and thistle seemed to be a favorite at one park, whereas the herb garden, and specifically the lavender patch, was the hot spot at the botanical park. I\u2019d forgotten how well these butterflies like lavender since I don\u2019t have it growing in my own garden any longer.<\/p>\n

Anyway, while checking the pond edge for dragonflies, I came across this group of cabbage whites puddling along a damp place in the path. I\u2019ve seen photos of swallowtails doing this \u2013 Larry<\/a> has posted a few on his blog \u2013 but I\u2019d never seen it for myself. I read tonight that it\u2019s usually the males that do this as the minerals they collect from the soil or manure or whatever is thought to increase their breeding success.
\"\"<\/a>
There\u2019s been very little butterfly activity in my own garden so far this season. The swamp milkweed is blooming and I saw my first monarch this past weekend. I\u2019ve been checking the plants for eggs or caterpillars, but haven\u2019t found any. There are lots of aphids and a few milkweed beetles making their living out there, though. The black swallowtail caterpillars that I posted about last week<\/a> grew very fat and disappeared \u2013 I have my eyes out for a cocoon, but don\u2019t have much hope of ever finding them.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned that I went out the other day to photograph insects at two of the local parks. It was a beautiful day to be out, but not so great for taking photos because of a constant breeze. I was hoping to find some colorful butterflies, but other than a few impossible skippers, the butterfly … Continue reading Puddle party<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}