Today, to our astonishment, we found a butterfly in our kitchen. It’s not unusual for us to find insects or other creepy-crawlies in the house during winter. Spiders find their way in (or crawl up from the basement), and Asian Lady Beetles are always peeping in. But with the temps at about 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside, we weren’t expecting to see a creature we usually associate with summertime.
We think it’s a Clouded Sulpher, Colias philodice, and we’re pretty sure that it’s not supposed to be active this time of year. We’re not even sure where it came from — the best we can suppose is that it came in on some of the firewood.
We’ve provided it with a bowl of homemade nectar, and are watching to see what it does. So far it’s been rather inactive, not flying at all, and just walking about on the edge of the bowl. Really, we’re quite unsure of what to do.
If anyone knows how we might best keep this little critter alive until spring, we’d sure like to know!
Posted on December 6th, 2009 by Rebecca Whitman
Filed under: Bugs and Crawlies!
Amazing! And beautiful too. No wonder you’d like to keep it alive until spring. I don’t know if this is one of those butterflies that winter over as adults, like the Mourning Cloak. Good luck!
Hello Jackie!
We’ve been trying to get some info about how long they live, whether they winter over, etc. — today it’s doing great, fluttering about a little more. We wanted to just let it fly around the house, but with two cats we figured it would be a short-lived adventure, so for now it’s in an aquarium. Thanks for the good luck wishes!
Always good to have you two prompting me to SEE more.
Oh what a great surprise! You two gentle souls, that little thing couldn’t have picked a better place to hang…
You could try making it a mud puddle for puddling. Good luck!
Hello Ken!
Thanks. This was certainly a surprising thing for us to see. We just walked into the kitchen and here was a butterfly hanging out! =)
Hi Jay,
Ah shucks . . . we just hope we can help it along until springtime! It’s still doing great today. We’ve decorated a nice home for it, with some old echinacea stalks and a bowl of nectar-water.
Thanks for the advice, barefootheart! We’ve tried it out – adding dirt and gravel to the nectar bowl, and we’re hoping there will naturally be enough salt and minerals in the dirt to sustain it. It’s still doing fine, fluttering about its little home and looking awfully pretty!
Great adventure — an accidental experiment in longevity, as it were. I was going to try that with my favorite spiders, but couldn’t work it out.
Keep us posted! Hope he/she does great!
Kenton and Rebecca:
Your nature blog is quite excellent. I am very impressed with your work and look forward to staying connected! Kudos!
http://deanleh.blogspot.com/
Dean Leh
Hello Dean, and welcome! Thank you as well for alerting us to the presence of your blog — the simplicity and beauty of your posts is simply enchanting! We’re putting you up on our Awesome Nature Blog blogroll — we’ll look forward to seeing more!
Hi,
We found the same butterfly crawling up our window two days after purchasing our Christmas tree. I also was wondering how to keep that beautiful butterfly alive until it’s warm enough outside. It is snowing and freezing out here right now and I really don’t know how the butterfly got in here…. I guess our butterfly isn’t the only one out there
Hello schirin!
They must be hibernating out there, and coming in on logs or trees. How marvelous! Sadly, despite our best attempts, our little butterfly didn’t make it. Or at least we think it didn’t make it. It has apparently died standing straight up, just as if it is frozen in place. We’re wondering if the best thing to do might have been to put it back outside — perhaps it ‘freezes’ for the winter like some caterpillars? We can’t seem to find any information on what the adults do during the winter.
We hope that yours fares wonderfully! We’re going to put ours outside once spring comes — if it is indeed dead, perhaps a bird will appreciate it.
we had a butterfly surprise us just a few days ago and our trying our best to keep it alive.
giving it nectar and water and added some fresh flowers.
Call Ripley!!! I found a Tiger Swallowtail In my back bedroom 01-07 2010.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/species/Tigersw.shtml
I don’t think mine wiil make it to Summer — life expectancy is not great for the butterflies.
It must have been on my Grapefruit Tree that I winter-over in the house.
Then the warm indoor air got it to “hatch” into it’s butterfly stage.
It’s in a critter box now and scarfing down nectar/ sugarwater.
Hi Iris!
Wow! Call Ripley indeed! That must have been quite a surprise. We’re happy to hear that he/she is devouring the sugar water — who knows, maybe she’ll make it till spring after all =)