Feeding and Attracting Butterflies
Want to attract butterflies to your backyard? Provide a yard that offers everything they need.
Food Resources
First, you have to realize that there are a lot of butterfly food sources; you just have to look for them! I promise that there are many different butterfly food sources all over your backyard; right now. If you are still having trouble attracting butterflies, you can simply add more resources to your yard.
Fruit From The Kitchen
Adult butterflies consume all sorts of different things including nectar water and even liquids from some of the fruits we consume.
Fruit Past Its Prime?
Plants Provide Nectar
In the life cycle of a butterfly, we know the monarch butterfly lays its eggs (larvae) underneath or on plants. The caterpillars hatch and only eat the leaves of plants. Different caterpillars like to eat certain kinds of plants. The leaves allow the caterpillar to grow and get all of the vitamins needed to transform into a beautiful butterfly.
Add Nectar
There are special butterfly feeders that are shaped and colored like flowers that hold a sugar-water solution. To make your butterfly nectar click here.
If you do not have a feeder you can purchase one Shop Here . A short-term solution is to soak cotton balls in butterfly nectar and put them on a plate outdoors.
Provide Protection
Provide butterfly homes in your yard.
The homes provide protection from the outside weather elements and predators. There are a wide variety of products on the market in wonderful designs and shapes.
Additional Reads
Lifecycle of the Monarch
Collecting & Planting Milkweed For Butterflies
Provide A Puddler
Part of a butterfly’s diet includes salt and minerals. Once they find a source for these nutrients they will remember and return for more. Most gardens don’t have a readily available supply. That’s where a Butterfly Puddler comes in handy.
Puddler Sand / Salt Recipe
Mix up .½ to ¾ cup salt to 1 gallon of sand. Pour some of the mixtures into your puddler. The amount needed depends on the size of your puddler. The mixture is poured into the puddler and is covered in water. When the water evaporates a salty mineral residue is a leftover that provides the nutrients the butterflies crave. It is like a salt lick for butterflies.
If the butterflies start using the puddler less, pour the mixture into a gallon-sized pale to re-salt at a later date. Refill the puddler with a fresh mixture.
How Do Butterflies Eat?
Butterflies eat an all-liquid diet. They sample nectar from all sorts of different flowers and sources, or they are using their long ‘straw’ to drink up water out of shallow ponds, butterflies are usually always looking for things that are liquid to eat.
Proboscis is a Funny Word
The small little, straw-like pipe, is coiled under its head most of the time. When ready to eat an adult butterfly uses to suck up all of the nectar from plants. The straw is called a ‘proboscis. This is the reason that all butterflies generally stick to an all-liquid diet; it is very hard to suck up any solids with a straw-like that for your mouth.
If you are looking to attract butterflies it is as simple as providing a food source for them. Feeding and attracting butterflies means, you build it and they will come!
Until next time friends. Take care!
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Some of the life cycle information for this article was provided by: https://www.TheButterflySite.com. One picture: Daniel Hall and one Marco Verch
