Snouts here, snouts there, American snouts are everywhere!
The invasion is on!
I remember this happening the fall of our first year here. Driving back from work at the Wildlife Rehab
there were hundreds of these smallish brown and orange butterflies crossing the
highway at such dangerous levels.
Usually the draft off the windshield just shot them into the air and I
wasn’t accumulating bodies all over the car but it was stunning! So many of
them, and which butterfly were they?
I remember stopping the car at a light and finding some on
the ground and here was this comically large nosed butterfly appropriately
named the American Snout (perfect name for these Jimmy Durante look-alikes)
(note to younger people- he was a comedian who made fun of his very large
“snochz-nose”). It turns out, when
conditions are right the Snouts have population “eruptions” and as they fill
the sky, it looks like a migration but it really isn’t. They do seem to be all
heading in the same direction yet they say they are just in search of new food
sources. Whatever it is, it is
spectacular to watch and it happened again this year.
What sets us up for snout-filled skies is a dry summer,
check, followed by huge rains, check, which kills off the parasites that love
to emerge before the snouts have
exited their pupa and eat them all.
Well, HA! Snout pupas must be fine with heavy rains, so out they come
with no predator in sight. Plus, the
icing on the cake is their host plant, the Spiny Hackberry, a desert Hackberry,
puts out new leaves when it rains. The
newly mated adults lay their eggs, the larva munches and, voila, soon the sky
is full of snouts! Cool!
It lasts for about two weeks and we are now coming to its
end in my neighborhood but it was a true spectacle and I personally LOVED it! So many people were complaining and wanting
to kill them! Can you imagine?! Birds
wanting to eat them I can understand but people feeling murderous towards them
is beyond my comprehension.
They weren’t the only butterflies filling the skies; so many
varieties of Sulphur butterflies have been zigzagging through my yard, plus the
omnipresent Pipevine swallowtails. They are brilliant and newly emerged. However, the place that feels like we are
filming a Mother Nature commercial is in my growing patch of blue Easily 20 -30 butterflies at a time are
sipping on this ambrosia of the butterfly gods.
But what am I doing writing about Snouts and butterflies
when my daughter’s wedding is only 9 days away!
Next blog will be on the other side of that. Going to MD where perhaps by October it feels
a bit like fall and I can regain my seasonal bearings. Until then, for some the skies are full of
falling leaves and for others flitting snouts, both lovely in their own
way. Enjoy!
