National Wildlife Federation/ San Diego County

NWF Volunteer Spirit - Published Articles

Rewarding Experience

from Volume 13, Issue 5

We recently have brought our caterpillar in the house in a mesh house. I was initially against it because we have a great habitat for them out side. My boys are persistent. Much to my surprise it has been a wonderful experience. Like I said we have a good out door Habitat for butterflies and have allot of caterpillars to watch but we seem to miss them in the metamorphous stage. We picked several large caterpillars to bring in along with their food to eat. One of them was already attached to a branch from a silk (see photos attached). It was amazing it took one day to ready itself by hanging in a J from the top of the cage. We saw him wiggle out of his skin loosing his spines. Then make wings from white stuff from the side of its body and make the out side of the cocoon. In one hour. We waited for it to become a butterfly (eight days) then turned it loose. The kids get to handle the butterfly at this time and the butterflies are not afraid they just climb on your hand and let them fly when they are ready. It makes it personal for us. It is a great experience for my kids and me. We have not seen one break free of the chrysalis yet, but we have a couple of hopefuls we are watching.

I started my butterfly garden two years ago and am expanding. What a rewarding experience it has been.

Currently we have gulf fritillaries. Lots of them. I have Passion vine planted in three places. It is wonderful to sit outside and see them fluttering around looking for food after they lay eggs on the Passion vine.

This year I had my First Anise swallow tail caterpillars on a Anise plant. I actually watched her lay eggs on my plant. We waited for a very long two weeks before they hatched.

We want more types of caterpillars. We have planted more host plant this year but they are little and I have list for this fall. Allot of the caterpillars host plants are natives hence the fall planting. We can not wait to see what next year brings.

Denise McKay

Habitat Stewart San Diego

Students learning through Action

Habitat Steward San Diego
Students learning through Action

Dawn Rucker, Habitat Steward
La Mesa, CA

At Rolando Elementary School, located in La Mesa, we are using our school garden grant money to transform an underused, weed-choked side yard into an outdoor learning area. The site already features a beautiful large mature live oak tree, and has great potential to be the centerpiece of a native habitat garden.
I have been working with my girl scout troop in the planning of the song bird garden. They have been learning about birds local to our area, and the types of native plants used for food and cover. They are looking forward to helping with the plantings as soon as the hardscape is completed.
In addition, I have been working with a third grade class on the characteristics of a chaparral environment, and the habitat needs of specific animals. I shared several native plants from my own garden so they could touch, smell and observe different characteristics of these plants and how they are suited for the chaparral environment. They did additional research using the web and book resources that I brought into the classroom, and later they presented their findings with a diorama presentation for our recent open house with recommendations as to what types of plants and other elements we needed for our schoolyard habitat.
Finally, I have recruited other teachers on campus to involve their students with the planning and development of expanding our native habitat garden to other parts of the school campus. Although the progress has been slower than I would have liked, we are building a strong school garden community and the enthusiasm among staff and students has been very high!