I was walking in the bush recently when what I thought was a largish leaf dropped out of the sky in front of me. It was actually a German wasp and a large green stick insect. The wasp stung it a few times then flew off with it. Two things amazed me, how the wasp spotted the insect as they are very well camouflaged, and it's ability to fly off with something that was about 10 times longer than it.
Apparently wasps use scent to hunt out protein, although the German and common only eat protein at a certain point in their life-cycle, usually later in summer, so camouflage is no protection from them. The rest of the time these wasps feed on sugary food.
Paper wasps on the other hand only eat live prey and they're that much worse for our native insects, especially in urban centres.
Though sometimes called "gardeners' friends" because they eat pest bugs and caterpillars, unfortunately they don't stick to the bugs we don't like. Paper wasps also eat honeybees, monarch caterpillars and butterflies, and dragonflies. So this year when planting swan plants for the monarchs, I covered them with insect netting. I kept the netting on until the plants were a good size then uncovered them for a few days so that the butterflies could lay eggs on them. They then got re-covered as it's easy to get too many caterpillars and run out of food, as it doesn't take many to strip a plant. I ended up raising about 30+ caterpillars from my four plants on the first cycle using this method.
The good thing I noticed was that once the caterpillars were ready to pupate, they managed to exit their 'tent' at ground level, then most climbed up the cherry tree next to it and pupated there. I am guessing they prefer not to do this on the swan plants as the leaves eventually would get eaten and they'd end up on the ground. I only saw one attacked by a paper wasp while going through the metamorphosis to pupa.
It's ok providing suitable plants to raise caterpillars, but you also have to make sure you have nectar plants for the butterflies to feed on afterwards, and to attract them. Hence this years wildflower patch. I'm also experimenting to try and attract the rarer NZ red admiral - I planted the stinging nettles that the caterpillars feed on, but I'm not sure I have enough that the admirals can track them down (I only have a small garden and don't really want 4m2 of these vicious stinging nettles - I'm sure my dog wouldn't be impressed either)! And I'm unsure whether there are many red admirals in Auckland region.
I hope to plant a couple of Butterfly trees (more bushes really), the Buddleia, which butterflies go mad over, but apparently the species is a pest plant in Auckland, so nowhere here sells them. I've sourced a couple of cuttings from Christchurch to trial.
NZ only has 20 native species of butterfly and they are finding it tough with spraying, wasp predation and habitat loss. Sadly I've noticed far less monarchs around this year. So this is a fun project that I hope will benefit the butterflies as well as my photography :-)
Below are the New Zealand copper butterfly (female & male) & a long tailed blue, shot locally.
Update: I have spotted a Yellow Admiral around the nettles! I nearly ditched them the other day after clumsily bumping into them and receiving a painful sting that lasted at least 12 hours - worse than any sting I have had from the UK ones.
