![]() Marketing people have jumped on the bandwagon and sell contraptions labeled as butterfly feeders but they do not seem to be an improvement over the more simple, homemade versions. Use a simple ceramic dish with a lip and suspend it from an old plant hanger.Pat offers the following insights from her experiences with butterfly feeders: By shining a flashlight on the feeder at night, the moths’ eyes will reflect a variety of colors. Other feeder visitors that are fun to watch include: Ruby-throated Hummingbirds which feed on fruit flies that hover near the fruit and a variety of moths that come at night. ![]() The Suttons leave their feeder outside until fall temperatures become too cold for butterflies. Once the temperatures in the spring start to hover in the mid-50s for extended periods, Pat places the feeder outdoors to attract over wintering species such as Mourning Cloaks and Question Marks. The number of early season of butterflies is small but increases as the weather warms up. Question Mark and Red-spotted Purple at butterfly feeder This butterfly was more than 100 miles out of habitat and most likely more than 250 miles away from its permanent range. The rarest butterfly that has been attracted to the feeder in Suttons’ Cape May County garden is a Gray Comma (seen on July 15, 1999). Red-spotted Purple, Red Admiral, Question Mark, Eastern Comma, Mourning Cloak, Common Wood Nymph, Little Wood-Satyr, Appalachian Brown, Hackberry Emperor, and Tawny Emperor butterflies have all visited the Sutton’s feeder to dine on goo.Even though Pat and Clay have an extensive butterfly/hummingbird garden, they don’t often see these aforementioned butterflies in their garden and have concluded that including a butterfly feeder in their garden greatly enhances their local habitat for butterflies.īutterfly feeders certainly attract local butterflies down from the trees to a central viewing area but feeders may also give a glimpse of the unusual. After a few hot days, the goo may need to be moistened with some fruit juice to keep it from drying out. Pat notes the fruit in the feeder needs to be gooey in order to attract a lot of butterflies. Once defrosted, the bananas become soft and watery. Goo” made from bananas that have been peeled, frozen, then defrosted. The butterfly feeder in their southern New Jersey garden is often filled with “banana Tawny and Hackberry Emperors at butterfly feeder
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