I enjoy sitting in our patio in the front yard beneath the umbrella where I can sip my mocha cappuccino in the morning or drink fresh squeezed lemonade in the afternoon while being entertained by the small creatures that have come to visit with me. I have planted various flowers and plants that attract both butterflies and hummingbirds.
The hummingbirds are year-round residents and I supplement their nourishment with a couple of feeders filled with sugar water. We mostly get Anna’s hummingbirds in our yard. Anna’s hummers like to chatter a lot. Hummers look like such gentle creatures but they can behave very aggressively when another hummer appears and in my yard there are constant territorial skirmishes. When at the feeder the hummers usually are looking about between sips for other hummers. When another hummer appears the two take off in a short-lived territorial battle. Occasionally I will hear them bump into each other and I’m assuming the sound is from their wings making contact. They appear to be more tolerant of each other when feeding on the salvias or other flowers. Anna’s also have weird aerial acrobatics at times. The bird will slowly fly vertically up to 50-100’ or so and then suddenly dive straight down and make a popping sound as it stops its descent. They may do this several times in a row.
Right now I have three resident Monarch butterflies. Two weeks ago I had only one but two others must have hatched out. These gentle slow flying butterflies soar about the yard from morning to dusk. Did I say gentle? These rascals also are quite territorial as well. When feeding they tend to ignore each other but if flying about, which they are often doing as if they are on patrol, they aggressively go after each other, usually doing a brief vertical barrel roll followed by a brief chase. This behavior occurs many times each day. The backyard has some passion vines and occasionally a Fritillary will venture out front and briefly do battle with one of the Monarchs. I have lots of milkweed growing which is the plant the Monarchs lay their eggs on and thus I have a constant supply of Monarchs as they hatch out at various times during the year.
A recent visitor has been the Cloudless Giant Sulphur butterfly. This one is always in a hurry and suddenly appears and just as quickly it disappears. I used to see this butterfly only occasionally but this year I see it almost daily. Being curious as to what host plants it likes I learned it likes plants in the pea family. I then realized that it was coming to my yard to visit because I have a popcorn plant in the back yard that I planted last year. The popcorn plant is a member of the pea family and although I have not seen the Giant Sulphur on the plant I am betting that is what attracting it to my yard.
At this time of the year the baby California fence lizards that hatched out are now large enough to notice and scamper away to avoid being stepped on. They are only an inch or two long at this time and are just the cutest little guys. They too must be careful of the 6-8” adults who have already claimed the territory. I notice one little guy has claimed the Jacaranda tree in the parkway as his territory. As they get larger they will eventually get chased off my property and will have to settle down elsewhere.
