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| A 2010 monarch lays an egg on milkweed |
While the
Journey North webpage indicates that my old friend
Danaus plexippus has been in Delaware for some weeks, I saw my first female this past week. The migratory female that I saw was drab colored and ragged, which suggests to me that it may have traveled quite far this Spring.
Some of the common milkweed that we planted 2 years ago is just barely starting to poke through the soil, but it's a ready target for ovipositing females. We may have the only
Asclepias in the neighborhood, and a female kept circling back and searching for an open spot to place an egg. The tip of the milkweed ramet below already had 7 pinhead-sized eggs on it! Monarchs have high mortality in the early caterpillar stages, and milkweed grows quickly from its underground rhizomes, so there should be plenty of food for everyone when they hatch.
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| Monarchs are good at finding their Asclepias host plant, even when it is barely poking above the ground. |
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