I've worked my ass off all summer on my brand new native garden. We just moved into our house a year ago this month. And, I'm pregnant, due it early December. Today I saw these guys all over my biggest milkweed. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones but I nearly lost it with joy. I feel so accomplished.
Anything else I can do to help protect them from predators? I found one on the ground a few feet from the plant, a little bit after I took these photos and put it back on the plant. Assuming it was a bird.
Thanks!
by sdakotaleav
5 Comments
That is a huge triumph and a perfectly reasonable reason to cry. Well done!
Of course you want to protect them from predators, but letting predators eat them is kind of the point. You’re helping the food web by propping it up at the base! Nice job, but it’s okay if they are gobbled up. That’s their place in the food web, and it’s the way it should be.
Amazing! Just leave them alone is my advice!!!
Congrats! And I’d just leave them – they look almost grown, so they’ll probably start crawling away from the plants to pupate soon anyway.
They can go pretty far (which prevents predators from finding all the caterpillars at once) and be pretty hard to find, so know that even if they disappear it doesn’t mean they were eaten!
Yay!!!!!