AFTER birds, butterflies are the second most followed and photographed group of creatures on the planet and who can blame people for falling in love with these brightly coloured insects?
According to Warren Dick, some folks are even willing to pay large amounts of money and travel far distances to see and photograph new butterfly species that they have not seen before.
“I have found the autumn months to be good for butterflies. From March, through to end of May, is the end of the main season making it quite a busy time for most butterflies,” said Dick.
There is much more to butterflies than their aesthetic beauty:
“There are more than 20 000 species of butterflies described world wide and South Africa is home to more than 670 different species, nearly half of which can be found within the greater Durban area.
All butterflies have a life cycle consisting of four stages; egg, larvae, pupae and adult. I have heard of many folk who say, “I love butterflies” then in the next breath say, “I hate these larvae and caterpillars that eat all my plants, I always squash them!”
“Unfortunately, you cannot have pretty butterflies without having caterpillars. I always try encourage people to leave the caterpillars be, usually they don’t destroy the whole plant. I encourage folks to take the caterpillars off their plants and raise them from within a plastic tub, giving them fresh food plant every two or three days,” advised Dick.
How to attract butterflies to your garden:
“First and foremost is to plant an indigenous garden, with plants found naturally in the area. There are many books that one can get on the topic of butterflies and even gardening for butterflies for instance, from well-known author, Steve Woodhall.”
While a lot of butterflies are attracted by flowers and their sweet nectar, some of the largest and most beautiful butterflies, like the emperor butterfly, enjoy nothing more than drinking from stinky fermented fruit.
“The next time you have rotten bananas or alike don’t throw it in the bin, but rather put it in an empty onion or orange pocket and hang it from a tree outside. Doing so will attract emperor butterflies to your garden. This, of course, does not work too well if you have monkeys frequenting your property.”
Contact Warren to have some of your interesting finds of spiders, snakes or other wildlife identified. Call or WhatsApp him on 072-211-0353. Join in the conversation on Facebook, Warren’s Small World.
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