With ~~~~~?---->@ SPRING! @<----?~~~~~ being here we have TONS of butterflies. My daughter and I love to look at them as we wait at the bus stop, but the only thing is those butterflies are just too fast to get a real good close up look.
Well, I remember reading on eHow on how to make a butterfly feeder!
It's very simple really. Here's what I did.
Ingredients
Couple of hand fulls of sugar -about 2-3 tablespoons
Very hot water- about a cup
3 really old, this side of rotting bananas
Shallow dish of some kind- I used an old Tupperware kind of container that the lids never fit on anyway
Assemble
Step 1: Dissolve sugar in the hot water
Step 2: Cut bananas into around 2 inch chunks and place in dish
Step 3: Add sugar water, but make sure the bananas are up out of the water so the butterflies have something to land on!
Now I've heard that adding flowers around the feeder will help attract the butterflies, don't know if that works, but it does make it look pretty. Oh, and change out the bananas when they dry out or get moldy.
I placed my feeder outside of the front windows so my kids (and I) can watch from afar to not disturb the wildlife, but close enough to identify what butterflies we see.
If this works out for us, then we'll be doing this well into October/November, because we have a long butterfly season.
**Edit**
It took a little while for the butterflies to find mine, (I think it was because we had a petered out storm go through), but here they are!
I added an orange, poked at the fruit with a butter knife to loosen up the juices, and it seems to attract more and different kinds of butterflies.
LOVE IT!
I hope you make a butterfly feeder too!
Until next time!
With Love,
Emily
how fun! I've never heard of that! Wonderful! :) Take pictures of the butterflies if you get a chance!
ReplyDeleteThat is very cool! Wonder if it would work without bananas? Thanks for posting the results as well as the how to. : )
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that you can make a butterfly feeder without the bananas. I know for sure that the butterflies here like oranges too, and it's really the sugar water that they are mostly drinking. It seems that the bananas are more of an attractant and something for them to land on to get to the water. Just remember that butterflies like the smell of "rotting" fruit. When I put out new bananas it takes a couple of days for them to be attracted to it, and I guess it because the bananas have to ferment enough for them to smell it.
DeleteSo try peaches, nectarines, pineapple, mango, plums, any kind of fruit that has a lot of juice to it. Who knows, you might get all kinds of different butterflies!