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ISSUE 14 | SPRING 2015 Discovery of the FREE PLUS ON PAGE 16 AVATAR MOTH SEEDS ORDER YOUR 2016 WHEN YOUR CALENDAR NOW FRIEND ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: SUBSCRIBES PG 16 • The shocking swan plant dilemma! • Our 10th birthday celebrations and where to next • Butler’s ringlet – the magical mountain butterfly • The Big Backyard Butterfly Count and species sheet 2 Jane has contributed another excellent piece of From the advice about seeds to plant for the coming season and you can get yourself some free seeds just by introducing EDITOR a new subscriber to our s winter draws to a close magazine. One of the goals I am hopeful that we for this year is to build our Awill see more monarchs subscriber numbers up to CONTENTS this spring and summer. I have a feeling one thousand. We’re currently at about that the cold snap in the middle of the 300 so we have a long way to go yet. Cover photo: Avatar moth. Photo by Brian Patrick winter will have helped to reduce the But if we could all introduce one new number of social wasps and therefore subscriber, we’d be halfway there. You 2 Editorial will help the monarchs in their efforts to and the new subscriber will each get 3 The shocking swan plant increase numbers. However, as you will TWO packets of seeds providing more dilemma! read in this issue there is likely to be less beautiful colour in your garden. milkweed available in garden centres… Remember that this is the time of the 4 Our tenth birthday so we should all grow more. Get some year when we hope to sell copies of our celebration seeds in now – you’ll find plenty of calendar, currently The next 10 years advice on page 3. under production. You will recall that There is more 5 An unexpected houseguest the monarchs were information also 6 Cover story: A novel diurnal the reason that the on the back cover geometrid from the Denniston MBNZT was formed and the proceeds Plateau ten years ago and since from sales go then we have expanded towards our work 8 Magical mountain butterfly our brief to introduce in education. We 9 Ahipara School New Zealanders to our do appreciate 10 The Big Backyard other beautiful species your support; you of butterflies and moths. will receive them in time to post Butterfly Count Yes, ten years ago! We had an amazing overseas for Christmas presents. They Kowhai butterflies celebration of the ten years and the are a great way of telling others of your 11 Butterfly species to count trustees are very much looking forward support for butterflies and moths and the to the next ten years. environment. 12 Gardening with Jane Carver: Talking about our moths and other This issue we have also started Seeds for the butterfly garden species, Brian Patrick has provided two something special for families: Inspector 14 Meet Earthlore’s very own very interesting stories about a butterfly Insector is going to contribute a regular Inspector Insector... and a moth that most of us are most column which we know will appeal to the unlikely to ever see. I’m pleased to be curiosity of children. 15 Photography tip with Angela learning more about them – they are all I do hope you enjoy this your Spring Moon-Jones so beautiful. magazine. And the winners are 16 2016 Butterfly Calendar Subscribe: Free seeds for you CALLING ALL SCHOOLS and a friend Would you like to have your school featured in a forthcoming issue of Butterflies? We want to feature schools who have enjoyed their Butterflies unit (or units) and would like to share their success with and inspire other schools with Editor/Secretary: Jacqui Knight their activities. Email [email protected] for more information. [email protected] Art Director: Kristie Rogers, [email protected] Treasurer: Carol Stensness A big thank you [email protected] Please support Advertising: Angela Moon-Jones to our magazine [email protected] ISSN 2324-1993 (Print) sponsors. We couldn’t ISSN 2324-2000 (Online) OUR SPONSORS do it without you. Published by: Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust, PO Box 44100 Pt Chevalier, Auckland 1246 www.nzbutterflies.org.nz [email protected] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ mbnzt Twitter: @NZButterflies Pinterest: pinterest.com/mbnzt Instagram: http://instagram.com/ nzbutterfliesandmoths/ Printed in New Zealand on Cocoon 100% recycled paper using vegetable-based inks 3 THE SHOCKING swan plant dilemma! he MBNZT has recently learned that over the following two weeks. So Tone of NZ’s largest Auckland-based one day you have lots of leaves, a growers of swan plant is retiring. This week later and the plants can just means that this season there could be be leafless stalks. St Kentigern students grow about 81,000 less swan plants available Many gardeners don’t think swan plants in eggshells for hungry monarch caterpillars. about buying swan plant(s) until More than ever before monarchs they are prompted by a monarch plant can be placed next to an existing need our help. As well as the shocking visiting their garden in the spring. Of plant. Or, if the existing plant has no statistics coming from North America, course, ‘spring’ is governed by the leaves, then prune it and put the stems where deforestation, pesticide use, weather – who knows when spring you have cut off (with caterpillars) at the GM crops and climate change are weather will be with us? For example, base of the new plant. affecting the migration, the monarchs I have had monarchs return to my are suffering here. In this country they Auckland garden and laid eggs, so the Milkweed and monarchs are poisonous have been ravaged over the last two warmer weather may be well on its way. so be careful when handling the seasons by wasps, their major predator. On a visit to a Waiheke Island property plants. Monarch larvae store toxic Warm winters in 2013 and 2014 have not today (27 August) we found swan plants steroids (known as cardenolides) from knocked the wasp population back and covered with eggs. the milkweed they eat and use these numbers have been climbing. Hopefully Many more butterfly lovers are now cardenolides as a defence against this winter has been colder and wasp growing their own plants from seed. predators such as birds. The bright numbers have been reduced; if this is That way they know for certain that warning colours of the monarchs and so, there will be more hungry monarch the leaves are safe for caterpillars. We caterpillars warn birds of their bad caterpillars than ever. encourage everyone to hold plants over taste and toxicity. When a bird tastes Ecosystems is a fascinating topic to from previous years. When a plant is a monarch it learns to associate their explore and the relationship between over 1.5 metres in height, and if it is well colour and pattern with the bad taste monarchs and milkweed (such as the fertilised and kept healthy, the growth in and avoids preying on them in the future. swan plants) make an easy subject. the spring and summer will almost keep (Interestingly, the shining cuckoo is not Think about the predators, parasites up with the caterpillars. affected and will eat them.) There is more and pathogens that affect monarchs. If Saint Kentigern College pupils have information about this on our websitre. we “loved” swan plants as some people been using eggshells in which to Be aware that there are different types of love rose-bushes, then we would see the grow their seedlings. “Less plastic, all milkweed and a new plant or plants may monarch as a pest. biodegradable and slug repellent,” said not immediately appeal to your larvae. It is not a simple exercise for a Xanthe Noble who leads the charge to Water the plant well so that if there is an commercial operation to grow swan look after monarchs at the school. imbalance of cardenolides, they will be plants. The plants need to be in a good So if you haven’t bought your plants diluted. condition when they go on sale. The two this year, get twice as many and protect Pesticides include fly sprays, plug-in main pests are monarchs and aphids. some for next year’s monarchs. Also insect controls and flea collars on pets After all garden centre management get some seed – Yates give the MBNZT so bear this in mind if you bring your won’t want to sell plants that are a donation for each packet sold – and larvae indoors. covered with aphids or are bereft of grow more plants. If seedlings sprout up Don’t grow all of your swan plants in the leaves. Some growers resort to using in inconvenient places leave them until same place but in different parts of the pesticides. Hopefully they don’t release you need food. Pull out the plant, or cut garden, and with other plants nearby. their plants for sale until the chemicals it off at the stem and put it in a bucket Flowering bushes of the same height are no longer active. of water, splitting the bottom of the stem offer shelter to your monarch caterpillars, “I grow all of my plants without before you do so it will better absorb and the perfume of other flowers may sprays,” one grower told me. “I try water. also offer protection from pests. to keep the plants under cover. One Here are some tips to look after The monarch caterpillars like to eat fresh monarch slipping in the door to the your crop of caterpillars: house can be an economic disaster.