I remember commenting to my husband that it would be sad if only one Monarch came by and this one didn't find a mate.
Just now, as I was belatedly putting some birdseed in the feeders, my heart flipped as I saw something I couldn't quite explain. It was a Monarch flying around, but it appeared to have another, seemingly lifeless, Monarch attached and dangling from its body.
As I watched, it headed for our young pine tree and settled on a branch. Then I realized that the seemingly dead one wasn't dead after all and what I was seeing was, to coin a phrase used by another Houston area garden blogger, Dorothy at The Nature of Things, a little backyard porn.
I'll admit, this is something of which I haven't ever pondered the mechanics.
Now I know.
I'll leave it at that :-)
My recently planted native milkweed probably isn't big enough to sustain Monarch cats at the moment, but I do have some healthy tropical milkweed. So she should have enough locations to lay her eggs.
I'll keep a lookout for them and keep you posted :-)
Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.
