Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Caterpillars for Birds

[ysabetwordsmith]

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth runs April 25-May 15. This year, I'll be posting about birds in honor of birdfeeding. Today's topic is Caterpillars for Birds.




Almost all birds raise their chicks on caterpillars. Therefore, to support birds, you need to support the butterflies and moths whose larvae feed the chicks. Most butterfly gardens focus on flowers in sunny places, and moth gardens have pale flowers that bloom at night, but they need more than that. It is essential to provide host plants for their caterpillars.

Attract and Nurture Butterflies in a Sunny Garden (multiple plans)

The Best Butterfly Garden Plants That Will Surprise You (host plants)

Butterfly Garden for sun (plant collection)

Gardening for Moths

Host Plants for Butterflies and Moths

How to Create a Butterfly Garden

Moth Garden

PLANT LISTS & COLLECTIONS: Recommended Species by State or Canadian Province

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS: Butterflies and Moths of North America (host and food plants)


Many birds prefer to hunt for caterpillars in trees, so they gravitate to trees with more nutritious leaves and thus more caterpillars. Therefore, choose native trees that host the most insect species. Exotic trees typically have one caterpillar or less, as compared to hundreds or thousands on a native tree. If you can do just one thing, plant an oak tree. A good approach is to plant a tree guild of plants that support each other in a miniature ecosystem. So start by picking a tree for caterpillars, then add other plants around that for a soft landing and extra attraction. Leave leaf litter under the tree for insects to hide or nest. Oaks especially do better with leaf mulch.

20 Plant Polycultures and Guilds

Attracting Wildlife with Soft Landings

Banana Circles

Butterflies attracted to banana plants

Canadian Serviceberry-Mulberry Guild

Characteristics of a Tree Guild (fruit guilds)

Find Oak Species for Your State

Forest Garden (fruit and nut trees)

Introduction to Food Forests (apple/plum/cherry tree guild, apricot guild, pear guild)

My Tree Guild Favorites (fruit guilds, evergreen guild, nut guild)

Native Yard Starter Pack 5: Oregon Oak Urban Guild, Full Sun, Dry Soil

Native Yard Starter Packs for Willamette Valley Wildlife (Oregon)

Nut Guild (walnut, hackberry, and mulberry)

Oak Guild (2 oak trees)

Oak Savanna Guild

Pawpaw Guild (discussion and plant list)

Permanut: Nuts for Regenerative Design

Plant Guilds (e-book)

Service Tree-Fruit Tree Guild

A Subtropical Fruit Tree Guild

Top Trees for Attracting Butterflies - Save Our Monarchs

Wet Meadow Guild (with spicebush and willow)


Starting with a host tree casts a considerable amount of shade underneath, so your soft landing plants should be shade-loving natives. Shade is also a good place to put a butterfly puddling area, so it takes longer to dry out. Similarly, a tree guild provides more protection from the elements, making it a suitable site for a butterfly house or log pile shelter. Remember that most butterflies hate strong wind because flying in it is risky and exhausting, so offer them as much protection as you can.

35 native wildflowers for the woodland / shade garden (Canada)

40 Best Plants to Grow Under the Oak Tree

Butterfly Feeders and Houses

Butterfly Flowers for Shade Gardens

A Butterfly Garden that Embraces the Shade

Coast Live Oak Native Garden

The Garden Decoder: What Is a ‘Soft Landing’?

A Habitat Hero Garden for Shade

How To Build A Woodland Wildflower Garden

Native Wildflowers for Shade - Prairie Moon Nursery

Plants to Grow Around Oak Trees

Shade plants for butterflies

Soft Landings Plant List

Wildflowers of the Eastern Woodlands

Wildflower Seeds For Shady Areas - American Meadows

Woodland Plants - Mostly Native Shade

Woodland Wildflowers - American Meadows


If you want a more traditional butterfly garden, many nurseries sell seeds or plants for this purpose. Often they're listed as "bird and butterfly" blends. These typically need full or partial sun. Include a dark basking stone to help butterflies warm up in the morning. Some birds, especially ground feeders, hunt caterpillars lower down and will find them in a garden.

32 Plant Butterfly Garden for medium soils in full sun - Prairie Nursery

Bird and Butterfly Flower Mix

Butterfly Buffet Perennial Native Plants Collection

BUTTERFLY-FRIENDLY WILDFLOWERS FROM LADYBURN NATIVE PLANT NURSERY (UK)

Butterfly Host Plants

Butterfly Host Seeds

Butterfly Nectar and Host Plants at FBTS Online Nursery

Butterfly Nectar Plants

Butterfly Nectar Seeds

Butterfly Retreat Mix

The Colossal Pollinator Garden Kit

Flowers for Moth Gardens

Host Plants - Prairie Moon

Host Plants for Butterflies & Moths - Prairie Nursery

Insectopia Seed Mix

Native Butterfly Seeds/Plants by State

Perennial Flowering Plants & Butterfly Gardening

Pollinator Garden Kit

Pollinator Palooza Seed Mix

Pollinator Patch Garden Kit (plants)

Wildflowers For Attracting Pollinators (seeds)


You can also garden with particular species in mind. You may wish to start by determining what kinds of butterflies and moths live in your area. Then you will need to provide their larval host plants and adult food plants (if needed). Only a few have been targeted by nursery companies, and almost all of those offerings are for monarch butterflies. However, there are resources for others, you just have to hunt around more.

BUTTERFLY, MOTHS, & SKIPPERS

Growing Host Plants and Nectar Plants to Attract Butterflies

Identify Butterflies Online

Lists of Lepidoptera by region


Fritillaries are beautiful butterflies, but challenging to support. Many of them have a complicated life cycle relying on multiple specific plants, including violets as larval food and goldenrods as adult nectar plants. They also need leaf litter and are fire-sensitive due to caterpillars overwintering there. Others have different hosts, like the gulf fritillary with its focus on passionflower.

Attracting Butterflies, including the Variegated Fritillary

Attracting Gulf Fritillaries

Attracting Pollinators with the Goldenrods

The Great Spangled Fritillary Butterfly and Your Garden

Life Underfoot in the Violet Patch

Passion Flower in the Butterfly Garden

Regal Fritillary Butterfly

Violets

Why Goldenrod is Native Plant Gold


Luna moths are spectacular moths with pale green wings. You can't attract them with flowers because the adults don't eat. The main way to attract them is with larval host plants which include birches, hickories, maples, and walnuts among others. A nut tree guild is a good bet. Like other moths, they are also attracted to light, but that's worse than useless if you have no host plants for them to lay eggs on, because the adults only live a few days.

How To Attract Luna Moths?

How to Attract Luna Moths to Your Garden

Luna Moth Caterpillars: Voracious Eaters Of Any Type Of Vegetation


Monarch butterflies are now classified as endangered. Their long migration leaves them vulnerable to many threats. Their caterpillars require milkweeds as host plants. Note that if milkweed grows in your area, you can often "catch" some for free with a batch patch of raked or tilled earth in late summer or early fall when their seeds are flying. Adults need a variety of nectar plants; they like milkweed, goldenrod, and various others. This species is the most supported by nurseries, making it easy to find materials for a monarch garden. Note that milkweed makes monarch caterpillars taste bad, so most birds won't eat them, but some have adapted to eat the caterpillars or adults. Monarchs need help, and a garden good for them will appeal to other butterflies and moths who make tastier caterpillars.

5 Spring Plants That Could Save Monarch Butterflies

Attracting Monarch Butterflies

How To Build The Perfect Monarch Butterfly Garden

Milkweed Collection 6 SEED PACKETS

Milkweed FAQ

Milkweed Plants

Milkweed Seeds

Monarch Butterfly Wildflower Seed Mix

Monarch Habitat Needs

Monarch Nectar Plant Guides

Why Gardening to Attract Everything means Less Monarch Butterflies


Painted lady butterflies are widespread. Unlike many species, their caterpillars will eat a wide variety of plants. Adults feed on diverse flowers too.

Attracting Painted Lady Butterflies

Butterfly Buffet: The Feeding Preferences of Painted Ladies

What Kind of Plants Do Painted Lady Caterpillars Eat?


Swallowtail butterflies tend to be big and flashy. Common examples include tiger swallowtails and zebra swallowtails. Their caterpillars need specific host plants. Black swallowtails will go for many plants in the carrot family, which make good polycultures with shallow (e.g. dill, fennel) and deep-rooted (e.g. carrots, parsnips) members. Young swallowtail larvae tend to look like bird droppings to discourage predators, so they must be tasty.
Garden kits are beginning to appear for swallowtails.

20 Plant Polycultures and Guilds

Attracting Swallowtail Butterflies

Butterfly Garden Kit, Easy to Grow Nectar and Host Plants for Butterfly Gardens (for swallowtails)

Butterfly Garden Wildflower Seeds (multiple carrot family members)

Host Plant: Aristolochia (pipevine)

How to Grow and Care for Spicebush

Pipevine Swallowtails and Pipevine


Worth mentioning as a very easy caterpillar to grow, that turns into a big delicious sausage for birds: hornworms. You may have seen tomato hornworms on tomato plants, but there are also tobacco hornworms. If they survive to adulthood, they turn into dramatic hawk moths or sphynx moths. To attract them, just put out some tomato plants -- something robust like an indeterminate cherry tomato that can withstand a lot of munching. If you spot hornworms on your human-food tomatoes, don't waste them; just move them to a mealworm feeder. Your birds will soon learn to watch for the free food!

Comments

[darkcedars]

I bought a couple starts of common milkweed yesterday at the zoo's native plant sale. In fall I had planted seeds, not a one came up.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I bought a couple starts of common milkweed yesterday at the zoo's native plant sale. <<

Go you!

>> In fall I had planted seeds, not a one came up. <<

I haven't had much luck planting seeds either. That's why I mentioned the trick of making a bare patch when they're seeding. I get some floating in from the wild, and they tend to sprout on or near the paths.

[pameladean]

Thank you for this wealth of information, in this and other recent posts. I have bookmarked more things than I can possibly do, but it's quite exhilarating.

P.

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Thank you for this wealth of information, in this and other recent posts. <<

I'm happy to hear that. I wanted to make an archive of "how to do birding" anchor posts for the community.

>> I have bookmarked more things than I can possibly do, but it's quite exhilarating. <<

Yay!

I suggest that you pick one thing at a time, and pay attention to seasons. Late spring isn't the best time to put up a birdhouse or birdfeeder, but it is a fantastic time to plant a caterpillar or bird garden or to put out a bird watering fixture of some sort.

Re: You're welcome!

[pameladean]

I'm happy to hear that. I wanted to make an archive of "how to do birding" anchor posts for the community.

It is a great resource.

And thank you for the advice. Our neighbors just cut down all the trees along the property line, including one mulberry well to our side of the fence; so while I'm extremely distressed, I have noted that the four garden beds the previous residents made on that side of the yard are now getting full sun again, so there is room for several small gardens of different types.

P.

Re: You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> It is a great resource. <<

Yay!

>> And thank you for the advice. <<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

>> Our neighbors just cut down all the trees along the property line, including one mulberry well to our side of the fence; <<

Well, that sucks. It is technically illegal, and a mature tree is worth thousands of dollars -- something you might want to point out to them -- but punishing people for doing that is hard. However, you would be well advised to mark the property line more clearly, perhaps with a fence. That strongly discourages people from trespassing to destroy your property.

Watch the mulberry. There is a high chance it will resprout from the stump; they usually do. So do maples and some other trees commonly used for coppicing. If you have marked the property line clearly, you can probably dissuade your asshole neighbor from continuing to abuse your trees.

>> so while I'm extremely distressed, I have noted that the four garden beds the previous residents made on that side of the yard are now getting full sun again, so there is room for several small gardens of different types. <<

You could keep that as a sunny place for gardening. It is certainly much easier to grow many things in the sun. Alternatively, consider planting a native tree guild. Think about what kinds of things you would enjoy growing or doing, and what sort of environment will best suit them. That part is something only you can decide.

Re: You're welcome!

[pameladean]

Well, that sucks. It is technically illegal, and a mature tree is worth thousands of dollars -- something you might want to point out to them -- but punishing people for doing that is hard. However, you would be well advised to mark the property line more clearly, perhaps with a fence. That strongly discourages people from trespassing to destroy your property.

The property line is very clearly marked by a fence. The fence belongs to the neighbors, and they took the chain link down for the arborists, but it's very evident that that one tree is not remotely on the property line. I'm wondering if the arborists made a mistake. The neighbors had marked the trees to come down by tying white plastic tape around them, and there wasn't any on our tree.

Watch the mulberry. There is a high chance it will resprout from the stump; they usually do. So do maples and some other trees commonly used for coppicing. If you have marked the property line clearly, you can probably dissuade your asshole neighbor from continuing to abuse your trees.

Oh, yes, it hadn't occurred to me, but several beloved mulberries in the neighborhood have been cut down while we have lived here -- they were all hollow inside, so I absolve the cutters-down -- and many of them have indeed sprouted thickly and become dense mulberry bushes that even set fruit after a while. I will keep an eye on ours!

As for the sun vs native tree guild issue, it's quite a long property line and I could probably have some of both. I will do some research.

Thank you again for the advice.

P.

Re: You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Oh, and if you're not sure what you want to do yet, throw down annuals to cover any bare ground -- the sooner, the better. That'll give you something to prevent erosion or weeds, some pretty flowers or whatever, and it's not a commitment. You can take the summer to watch the new light and water patterns, then decide later what you want to do permanently.

Re: You're welcome!

[pameladean]

I was wondering about this. I've got a bunch of expired, allegedly, annual and perennial seeds, and when I've planted them in the past, I have gotten about 50% germination rates even from packets intended to be planted five or ten years ago. So I think I'll use those and see what happens.

P.

Re: You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Go for it! Many seeds will survive a surprisingly long time. If they don't sprout, you can always try something else.