Grasshopper Surprise with a Few Butterflies
On Thursday, when it was very temperate and sunny, I went outside to start checking my grass for more "weeds" I could identify. I was walking around, very carefully keeping my eyes on the ground for a new one I hadn't observed yet, and I rounded my house to the front yard that slopes all the way down to my busy street. This area gets full sun, and I tend to ignore it since the slope prevents me from doing much with it, and makes it a little more difficult to traverse.
I immediately began to notice lots of sudden buzzing noises as I stepped, and a 1 inch bug would zip away from the ground a few feet ahead every time I stepped forward. There were lots of grasshoppers all over the slope, enjoying the full sun of this area, and getting spooked by me moving through! I was able to see that they were all around one inch or so, and some were a grassy green while others were more tan. They blended it so well with my less than healthy lawn, and would jump away so quickly I couldn't get a closer look. I wanted so badly to inspect them more closely and maybe even get a photo so I could try to identify the type of grasshopper they were, and I'm sure my chasing grasshoppers around the front lawn was an amusing sight for the neighbors and folks driving by!
I never got close enough, but while hunting these fun little insects I stumbled upon a tiny American Copper butterfly, and was over the moon excited! Since my yard doesn't border woods or have much for trees, I don't have the pleasure of seeing Mourning Cloaks or Eastern Commas in the spring, although I have had many Cabbage Whites since March. This dime-sized American Copper was the first non-Cabbage White butterfly I had seen this season in my yard, and it was so pretty and pristine looking. It was definitely a relatively freshly eclosed butterfly, with no signs of wear and tear on its wings yet (I need to look into what their host plant is, I would love to more fully support these lovely insects in my yard). I followed it along, watching it land on violets and Star of Bethlehem flowers for awhile, until something told me to look up.
Higher up above my yard I saw a lazily gliding flash of orange turning the corner around my house. My first thought was "Oh my gosh, it's an early Monarch!", and I took off running after it hoping to be able to confirm this sighting (there have been Monarch sightings in Connecticut already, and they did leave Mexico a little early, so this didn't seem too far-fetched). I caught another far off glimpse of it before it went through my neighbor's yard and further away into the neighborhood, but unfortunately not good enough to confirm my suspicion that it was indeed a Monarch. It seemed to have that lazy, gliding kind of flight that Monarchs have (compared to faster fluttering of some others), and it did seem to be the correct size. But I am not confident enough in the sighting to want to submit it to Journey North, I'll just continue to watch hoping to see one I can confirm.
Coming back around the corner to my backyard, looking around to see if I could find any further fluttering friends, a flash of yellow in one of my raised beds caught my eye. The first of the Eastern Black Swallowtails that wintered over had emerged from its chrysalis! I protect them in my shed over the winter, and put them back out near the fennel in my garden they lived their caterpillar lives on in the spring once it's growing again, to emerge when they're ready. This wasn't the earliest I had had one emerge, in fact last year the first emerged on May 9th. This new swallowtail was definitely a male, with much more prominent yellow markings on his inner hind wings, and very little blue. It was a little on the smaller side, not as big as some of the mid-summer ones get, but it seemed quite healthy. It was so wonderful to see, I was so excited for all the butterfly experiences my little yard had already brought me so early in the season.
I thought I was going to be continuing to document the biodiversity of plant life in my yard that day, and ended up with some fun insect discoveries instead!
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This is just great!! I haven't seen any grasshoppers yet but I have seen little butterflies but haven't got a good look at them sadly.
Usually I will see grasshoppers soon because every autumn they will lay eggs in my deck even though we try to stop them and then in the spring little nymphs will emerge.
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