DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709120253

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: THE COASTAL JOURNAL 

SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow 

                                            LENGTH:   82 lines

THIS SUMMER IS TRULY THE YEAR OF BUTTERFLY BUSH DOING ITS JOB

Butterflies are at their peak in my yard right now and they are such a distraction.

Every time I come or go these days, I find myself stopping and idly staring at them flitting from flower to flower in my little garden. The groceries warm up in the car and the puzzled dog sits on the end of the leash wondering what happened to the walk we were going to take.

Once, an orange monarch, a huge beautiful tiger swallowtail and a black swallowtail were all feeding on the butterfly bush at one time. That's not to mention scores of tiny brownish butterflies that were all over the bush.

In other years, butterflies seemed to enjoy lantana and zinnias and other butterfly flowers I have in the yard. But this summer is truly the year of the butterfly bush. Its white blooms have been coveted by the yard critters to the point of warfare.

In one of my lazy musings on the way into the house, I was startled by the buzzing squeak of an aggressive female hummingbird. She zoomed down from nowhere and chased a big tiger swallowtail away from the butterfly bush. Then the hummingbird flew back to feed.

Since then I've seen her chase chickadees and purple finches as well as other butterflies when any of them came near the butterfly bush or the hummingbird feeders when she was in the vicinity.

Another time I saw a tiger swallowtail on its last legs as it fluttered to get up off the ground. I picked it up and held it in my hand close to a bloom on that same butterfly bush and learned why the hummingbird holds it in such esteem.

The butterfly's proboscis found its way into a flower. Suddenly I could feel the fading beauty get a surge of energy as it pulled ever so slightly closer to probe deep in the bloom for sustenance.

A few long sips like that and the butterfly flew from my hand, rejuvenated by the sweet nectar. But not for long, I feared.

I think I told you about the day I had watered the vegetables during one of those droughty weeks and watched a butterfly drink from the sandy pathway. The swallowtail was searching for moisture with its proboscis down among the sandy grains.

On another day, I counted six or seven orange monarchs hanging from the butterfly bush feeding hungrily and, I thought, the monarch migration must have started.

Bonnie Denault, president of The Butterfly Society of Virginia, agreed. She saw butterflies flying along the Chesapeake Bay beach last weekend and was sure they had flown across the Bay and were on their way south to Mexico. And we both wondered if there will be another big migration this fall as there was last.

At the same time, Denault said, she has seen a wealth of butterflies in her yard recently - monarchs and everything else, too. ``It was kind of a slow year until August,'' she said ``and then all of a sudden in August, it just started.''

I started thinking that Denault, alone, could be responsible for the increase in monarchs and other butterflies around here. She releases two or three from her butterfly cages every day.

If you are interested in what Denault's doing, you can join The Butterfly Society of Virginia. Call membership chairman Ruth Burch at 499-6789.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Alan Pocta called to say his night-blooming jasmine is flowering again. If you'd like to see it, call him at 340-4414.

Dan Arris has cleared up the mystery of the white goose flying at the head of a V-shaped flock of Canada geese. It's ``a common barnyard goose,'' he said, that holds its own among the Canadas. As Arris spoke, he was watching the white one with its bunch of foreign friends walking around his yard on Thalia Creek. He estimates he's seen the group together for four years now and that the white one has led the flock on high before. ``We call him Whitey,'' Arris said.

Leave your hummingbird feeders up until at least Oct. 15, say the folks at Wild Birds Unlimited. Our local hummers usually leave the area between the middle and end of September but keeping feeders filled a couple of weeks longer provides food for passing migrants. On the other hand, if you want to keep your feeders filled even longer to catch all the strays, that's OK, too. A filled feeder won't prevent a hummer from migrating, as some think. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW

A tiger swallowtail uses its proboscis to probe for sustenance

inside the white flowers of a butterfly bush.

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