The Butterfly Effect

Late last September I noticed a cloudless sulphur butterfly ovipositing on a privet senna. (Privet senna used to be called Cassia ligustrina, but now has been reclassified as Senna ligustrina). Not long afterward I found 4 big healthy caterpillars busily eating the flowers, and one small caterpillar on a privet senna around the corner. I'm always excited to see caterpillars, but this time was special because it was the first time I had seen sulphur caterpillars in our yard since Hurricane Charley gave us a near miss in 2004! (We weren't quite so lucky with Wilma in '05, and Irma in '17).

Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar on Privet Senna

I've seen only the occasional large sulphur in our yard since Charley, and certainly none none laying eggs.  At the same time, I have cast many an envious glance across the canal, where sulphurs frequently visit the red flowers in that neighbor's yard. And I haven't seen the gorgeous orange-barred sulphurs at all for years.

Orange-Barred Sulphur
Female: Top & Middle; Male: Bottom

Sulphurs don't have it easy. Once as I was sketching a newly-emerged cloudless sulphur dry its wings, an anole jumped out of nowhere and snatched it right off the chrysalis shell. The caterpillars don't seem to be toxic, so they would be vulnerable to birds. Years ago I observed a tiny spider -  sucking on a hapless sulfur caterpillar many times its size. I went back a few hours later to see how much the spider had expanded, but couldn't find it or any traces of the caterpillar. The spider either stowed its prey somewhere better hidden, or perhaps both got taken by a bird. I didn't see how the spider could injest the whole caterpillar in one go without exploding!

You Can Just Make Out the Spider in the Top Right
Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar on Bahama Cassia

I've always blamed the hurricanes along with habitat loss for the disappearance of the sulphurs in our yard. And indeed, the entire insect population visiting us has declined significantly in both numbers and number of species over the years. But that really doesn't explain why there are sulphurs across the canal, and not here, or why I still get other butterfly species reproducing in the yard. It also doesn't explain why I got plenty of the smaller barred yellow sulphurs once I introduced their larval host, pencilflower. (Stylosanthes biflora).


A little reading and a little web surfing has led me to something of an aha! moment, and a no-brainer at that. I came across a post by Florida wildflower specialist Craig Huegel, in which he commented that he never had seen sulphurs ovipositing on cassias that weren't blooming. He also wrote that he preferred Bahama cassia over privet senna because it blooms more regularly, while privet senna blooms in sporadic flushes. It turns out that the orange-barred sulphurs prefer Bahama cassia over privet senna as well. (Bahama cassia now seems to be classified as Senna mexicana var. chapmanii).

Newly-Emerged  Female CloudlessSulphur(I think)
Blue Porterweed, Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

As the photo with the spider shows, I had Bahama cassia at one time, but it wasn't in a good place. Over time it declined, and then died. Once you've had privet senna in a no-lawn yard like ours, you'll always have it, due to its vigorous self-seeding. I like the plant for the bamboo-like effect its dark green, pointed leaflets, as well as its striking deep yellow flowers.

It's supposed to be drought-tolerant, but it is short-lived for me. Maybe it is just too hot, sunny and salty for it here, or maybe I just don't love it enough. Over the years I've pretty much abandoned it as a garden plant, letting it grow in the waste places in the yard where nothing else thrives. Of course, it gets ratty quickly, and then I cut it down. If I were a sulphur butterfly I wouldn't lay any eggs on its desiccated leaflets either. So without thinking about it consciously, I've stopped providing reliable host plants for the large sulphurs.

Privet Senna - Senna ligustrina

Another thing that I did along the way was remove a large firebush (Hamelia patens) that was growing in absolutely the wrong place. It was a great favorite of the sulphurs, who like the same flowers that hummingbirds do. It also gave cover for birds, and mockingbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers loved its berries.

There's no guarantee that I'll get a resident sulphur population again, but it's worth trying. I can't do anything about hurricanes or the overbuilding, but I can get a Bahama cassia, take care of the privet senna, and see about finding a place for another firebush. It's so easy for one seemingly small action to set a chain reaction in motion. As former Florida senator and governor Lawton Chiles once said, "The knee-bone's connected to the jawbone."(He really did say that).

The Comfort of "Exceptional Images"

It's been a while.

I have been coping (not very well) with serious health issues in my family for a couple of months. We seem to have turned a corner now, though we're not out of the woods yet.

While the crisis was building I felt utterly helpless. I was drawing frantically - somehow drawing was one of the few things I could do. Otherwise I felt as if I were walking in deep sludge. Even the most basic activities seemed to take enormous effort.

A Dead Dragonfly (Saddlebag)?
My husband found it and brought it to me to draw.

Drawing was a way of blocking out feelings, a way of mitigating, if only temporarily, the desperation and frantic torpor that threatened to overwhelm me. But once I put the pencils down, the anxiety returned with a vengeance.

Then I read the post Art and Nature are My Healers by Elizabeth Smith. She described her path to reconciliation after her mother's death, and it seemed as though she had written it for me. She quoted a passage from Clare Walker Leslie's Drawn to Nature, in which Leslie recounted losing her own mother, and the solace she gained from drawing: "Every day, while my mother's illness progressed, I would find one image outdoors that I could hold onto, like a marble in my pocket that I rubbed for nourishment and balance. This looking out at the world helped my looking in, towards my own pain."

Shell and Horseshoe Crab Molt 

In her post Elizabeth detailed her search for, and sketch of a "daily exceptional image," and how it is helping her to deal with her own grief. When I read it something fell into place, and I realized what I was missing.

I needed to stop blocking, and start opening myself to the wonder of what I saw, even if it left me more vulnerable to fear and anxiety. Strangely enough, the process has been comforting. The weather then wasn't conducive to outside exploration, so instead, I searched my sketchbooks for drawings that had meaning for me, and finding them gave me a glimpse of happiness again. I have sprinkled some of them throughout this post.

Elizabeth's blog reminded me of the first peaceful day I remember after my mother's death, which was devastating.  I sat outside in the shade and drew Gaillardias. It took a long time to make this very simple line drawing. I  meant to color it in later, but decided it was better as it was. My mother was not one for frippery or fuss. She had a clean, simple esthetic. She loved a handful of flowers in a jar much more than a florist's arrangement. Drawing these cheerful flowers became an act of devotion, a simple moment of celebration of all my mother had meant and forever will mean to me.

Gaillardias - for me and my Mother

Anxiety and grief never really go away. But drawing with an open heart, not drawing to block out reality, is grounding. The drawings don't have to be perfect; they don't even have to be good, but the very act of recording something that has impressed us with its beauty, its form, its simplicity, whatever it may be - can give us the serenity to keep going. As Elizabeth wrote, "I could be mindful about something exceptional that did not cause pain, but instead promised something more." Thank you, Elizabeth and Clare.

June Beetle

Two of my favorite books by Clare Walker Leslie :

Nature Drawing: A Tool for Learning. Prentice-Hall. 1980. Revised Printing, Kendall/Hunt. 1995. - This is one of my favorite books, period. I often go to it when I feel like I am in a slump, or need an infusion of energy and enthusiasm.

The Art of Field Sketching. Prentice-Hall. 1984. Revised Printing, Kendall/Hunt. Another great book to get you motivated, up and outside.

Clare Walker Leslie's books are available at Amazon, and probably other vendors.