This is the time of year when backyard wildlife enthusiasts are hard at work gardening for wildlife.  If you enjoy butterflies, you are probably sowing seeds or setting out plants that will attract these flying flowers.

For years, the goal of these efforts has been providing adult butterflies with dependable sources of nectar throughout as much of the year as possible.  Nowadays butterfly gardeners are also planting host plants for these beautiful insects.

Host (also called caterpillar) plants are the plants that provide food butterfly caterpillars.  While as a general rule, butterflies will eat nectar from a wide variety of sources, they only lay their eggs one a small number of plants. If a butterfly’s host plant(s) are not available in your yard or neighborhood, they will not lay their eggs there and your chances of seeing that particular species is reduced.

With that in mind, savvy butterfly gardeners are incorporating host plants into their gardens.  Fortunately, it is extremely easy to provide the host plants used by the black swallowtail.

Black swallowtails lay their eggs on plants that are members of the Apiaceae family, which includes Queen Anne’s lace, carrots, fennel, parsley, and celery.

If you go ahead and plant any of these species in your yard right now, you have an excellent chance of having them used by black swallowtails this year.

Here is a planting tip:  plant a bunch of whatever plants you choose.  If you don’t, should a female black swallowtail lay her eggs on your plantings, the voracious caterpillars could easily eat the plants up before they become established.

The zebra I am referring to are not the four-legged animals that live on the African plains.  The zebras I am talking about has six legs and can fly–the zebra swallowtail butterfly.

You would be hard pressed to mistake this butterfly with any other that inhabits the Peach State.  The zebra swallowtail’s wings displays a pattern of alternating distinctive black and white stripes.

The zebras I see at this time of the year are, on the average, smaller and have shorter tails than those I spot later in the year.

The zebra swallowtail can be seen throughout the state.  Depending on the weather, it can be seen somewhere in the Georgia from late February to early November. I especially enjoy watching them in the springtime flying through leafless hardwood forests seeking pawpaws.  The pawpaw is the host plant for this beautiful butterfly. Once a female find a pawpaw she will lay a single egg on the plant before moving on looking for another pawpaw.

I personally see more zebra swallowtails in early spring than at any other time of the year.  At that time of the year, few other butterflies are on the wing. However, for some reason, over the past few years I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen this butterfly during an entire calendar year.

Zebra swallowtails will nectar on a variety of flowers; however, they tend to shy away from tubular flowers such as coral honeysuckle. This is because they have a short proboscis and cannot reach nectar at the far end of a long, trumpet-shaped bloom.  In addition, they favor white flowers above all others.

If you have not seen a zebra swallowtail in your yard, it could very likely be because no pawpaws are growing nearby. If that is the case, you can easily remedy the situation by planting a few native pawpaws.  If you do, with a little luck, zebras will indeed be seen flying about your backyard.

For the past several weeks, one of the most common butterflies in my backyard has been the red-banded hairstreak. Although, I expect to see this butterfly later in the year, it appeared earlier than normal in my Middle Georgia backyard. I suspect this is due to the abnormally warm weather that has dominated our weather this winter.

Although, this tiny butterfly (wingspan: 0.75-1″) is one of the smallest butterflies I see in my yard, it is every bit as beautiful as much larger butterflies such as the common buckeye.

The red-banded hairstreak can be spotted in backyards across the entire state.  It has several flights (generation) from as early as February, in the warmer regions of the state, through early November.

Like most of our butterflies, in between times when a flight is taking place, this tiny butterfly is sometimes hard to find. Then, suddenly you seem to see them everywhere.  With that in mind, if you are not able to find one in your backyard right now, before long you should spot one.

The red-banded hairstreak is light gray in color. From above they are drab gray. Fortunately, most of the time we see them with their wings closed.  As such, from below their wings are truly striking.  The butterfly’s gray underwings are accented by a jagged, red band that highlighted on the side toward the trailing edge of the wing with a slender black and broader white line.  Each underwing is equipped with two extremely thin, short tails.  One or more of these fragile tail filaments are often missing in older individuals.

For some odd reason, adult red-banded hairstreaks often gather atop trees in the late afternoon and evening.

This butterfly differs from most others because it lays its eggs in the dead leaves beneath its host plants (staghorn, fragrant, and winged sumac and wax myrtle).  Strangely, when the caterpillars hatch, they do not feed on the green leaves of its host plant, preferring instead to dine primarily on the decaying leaves found on the ground beneath the plant.