Comments (22)

By Mom Unplugged, September 7, 2008 6:34 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was soft.

I guess we could also have done this one last week for insect, but this week for our soft Unplugged Project, we made moth and butterfly feeders out of soft cotton balls and soft sponges.

I was inspired by our second visit this past summer to the Strong Museum of Play’s Butterfly Garden (in Rochester, NY). By the way, if anyone lives near Rochester, NY, or is visiting the area, that museum is well worth a visit, and don’t miss the butterflies! (For photos, please see my post from our first visit in 2007).

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Let’s start with the moths. I found the instructions here: How Stuff Works: Moth Feeder.

You need cotton balls, string, apple juice and sugar:

Measure 1/2 cup apple juice and pour it into a bowl:

Stir 1 tablespoon sugar into the apple juice until dissolved:

Next, soak the cotton balls in the mixture until saturated, then squeeze out to reduce drips. My two year-old really enjoyed this step. All the children were licking their fingers when done!

Tie the sugary cotton balls onto a string. We tied several on each string.

Hang the strings near outside lights or in front of a window where a light will be on inside, anywhere that might attract moths at night.

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For the butterfly feeder we used the leftover apple juice-sugar mixture from the moth project. We also needed a kitchen sponge, and a plate or dish - preferably red since butterflies are supposed to be attracted to the color red.

The formula for attracting butterflies (or certain moths) seems to be quite varied. Apparently sugar water works fine, but there are all kinds of other ingredients that can enhance the attraction. I even read that human urine has been used successfully to attract them! Generally though, they apparently like fermented bananas or other fruit, sugar water, brown sugar and rum!

We decided to get fancier than plain old sugar water, but we gave the urine idea a miss!

We didn’t have rotten banana on hand, but we did have some over ripe nectarines that I left out in the sun all day to hopefully ferment a bit:

We concocted our own formula of the leftover apple juice and sugar mixture, additional brown sugar, the nectarines, and even a bit of rum that I found in the pantry (although you could certainly leave that out, I think it probably just gives a more fermented odor to the blend).

Soak the sponge in the liquid mixture until saturated, then put it on the plate and add any rotten fruit:

Place the dish outside in a sunny spot. Try to pick someplace near flowers that butterflies enjoy, and put the plate a bit higher than the blooms if you can. We put ours on top of an empty birdbath in the middle of our rather neglected butterfly garden.

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So, how did we do??

Well, we had one moth customer as of bedtime last night:

We hung three feeders up and (not surprisingly really) he was at the one near the brightest light. Keep that in mind if you try this.

The butterflies were more elusive. We didn’t sit and watch all day, but none came while we were checking. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

(RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS IN COMMENTS: I expected the plate to attract lots of wasps, ants and other bugs, but not yet for some reason. I suspect that that might happen more readily in some “buggier” parts of the world. Once the ants do find it though, they’ll probably carry the whole thing off!)

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A few links:

Bird and Other Wildlife Feeders

How to: The Butterfly and Moth Cookbook (cooking FOR them, not cooking them…)

Why are Moths Attracted to Light?

Moth or Butterfly?

The Children’s Garden (an old Unplug Your Kids post about gardening with children, includes information on creating a butterfly garden)

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If you joined in the soft Unplugged Project this week, then please put a link to your post (preferably your actual post, rather than your blog) in Mr. Linky. If you didn’t join us but want to know more about how to join in, then please read more here.

Also, in case you missed it last week, I have decided to disable the Linkys after two weeks in order to prevent spam. You will always be able to follow all the existing links on the Mr. Linky, but there will be no new links added after two weeks.

Finally, the Mr. Linky is only for those who do that week’s project. I do check and when I find a link with no apparent project, I delete it. Sorry, but I really want the links to just be for projects so they are an easy resource for readers.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Sand

Have fun!

Comments (5)

By Mom Unplugged, August 2, 2007 1:04 pm

We just came back from a wonderful day at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. If you are in the area with (or even without) children, you MUST see this museum! This is our fourth time there. We make it an annual trip each summer when we come to my hometown in Upstate New York.

The kids had a choice: the lovely sandy beach at Sodus Point or what we call simply: “The Museum.” No question, “The Museum” was the unanimous choice. Even the baby had fun. All downstairs exhibits are “hands on” and really entertaining and educational for even the littlest visitors. Upstairs contains a fascinating display of thousands of toys arranged by vintage. Grownups will also enjoy finding the toys from their childhood, and the popular ones are all there!

This year we were able to visit the new Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden that had just opened in a new wing last summer and was too mobbed to get into then. It is the largest indoor butterfly garden in New York and was truly was amazing! Tickets are limited in number and are for a specific reserved time so as to insure that only a small number of visitors are in there at once. There were probably about ten or so in our group.

Visitors wander around the tall glass atrium-like structure through pathways carved out between the lush flowers and vegetation. Soothing music plays in the background and mist emanates from vents placed high up (to maintain the proper level of humidity). A huge variety of butterflies, large and small flit happily to and fro. Many pause to sip nectar from flowers or bird baths filled with fruit. Some also enjoy hanging off loofah-sponges that have been soaked in a divine (to a butterfly) mixture of Gatorade, honey and sugar water. They even seemed to enjoy landing for a little rest on our heads. If you are a butterfly, this is the place to be!!

There is also a window that looks into “the nursery” in which hundreds of different lucky cocoons hang suspended from rows of rods. Some cocoons are small and green, others large and brown and look exactly like curled up dry leaves. There were even shiny gilt cocoons that seemed to have been made of pure gold! If you are fortunate, you might see a beautiful creature emerge from one of these odd-looking chrysalises.

Apparently the museum purchases most of its cocoons (or perhaps larvae?) from suppliers worldwide. However, at least one species reproduces happily within the environment as evidenced by the giant green caterpillar in the last photo below.

This fascinating experience reminds me of an amazing unplugged activity for children: a Butterfly Garden kit. This kit comes with all you need to raise butterflies in your home. There is a mail-away certificate for five larvae that come in a jar complete with all the food they will need.

We did this last summer and it is truly incredible to see how quickly these little thread-sized creatures grow into long, fat caterpillars! We would check them at night before bedtime and then by the morning, they would already have visibly grown. When ready, the caterpillars cocoon hanging upside down off the lid of the cup. After a few days of seeming inactivity (I think maybe 5?), the cocoons start moving and breaking open to reveal their miraculous contents. We were fortunate enough to have all five of our larvae emerge as healthy butterflies.

Summer is the time to do this so that you can release your newly hatched butterflies into your garden. Being an animal (and insect, and any living creature) freak, I checked beforehand that the variety of butterfly that comes with the kit (The Painted Lady, vanessa cardui) was in fact native to, and could survive in my area. The Painted Lady is a tough butterfly that is common over the whole US and is even found on every continent except for Antarctica!

I must be in some sort of butterfly mode at the moment, because the other day I also picked up a wonderful book at Tuesday Morning called Garden Butterflies of North America: A Gallery of Garden Butterflies & How to Attract Them. I have to boast: I bought it for $5.99 and at Amazon the same edition is $15.56!

If you get REALLY into this butterfly thing as we did, then please see my April post entitled The Children’s Garden for more information on how to create your own backyard butterfly garden.

The “Nursery”

A very large, fat and happy caterpillar on a plant!