Wins and losses - butterflies, wildlife & plants

January 2026

It is practically mid-summer now and my quiet aim for the butterfly garden has been achieved today - to have three monarchs in the garden. That's what used to be the norm in my Hillcrest garden in summer, which was considerably smaller. However, be careful what you wish for - they are all males. I have had no more eggs or monarch caterpillars for a month. The ones that hatched early December have been eclosing over the last week or so - mostly males so far - and the female has not chosen to stick around, despite the garden offering a bounty of nectar at the moment.

Some argy-bargy in the skies between male monarchs

The yellow admiral caterpillars that I brought in incidentally with the red admirals from the other side of the harbour as part of the Red Admiral Project all eclosed some weeks ago and now the red admirals have been emerging. However, they have not been doing well and I wonder whether the wet weather they have been exposed to with these thunderstorm downpours has hindered their health. I have released five healthy ones now, but there are more that didn't make it. One chose to hang around for a little while yesterday, which was lovely, because the admirals so far have all left and not returned.

Whilst the garden is new and quite low-growing, I have had continuous visits from monarchs, whites and blues, as well as lots of other pollinators, as I have been religiously dead-heading the flowers to ensure a continuing supply of nectar. Cosmos, buddleia, escallonia, tropical milkweed, swan plants, catmint and the weeds have kept the butterflies happy, whilst the gaura, roses, lavenders and other flowers have ensured the garden is filled with bees.

Tropical milkweed is an excellent nectar source for monarchs in Auckland

Unfortunately, the European paper wasps just keep coming and we are catching at least half a dozen a day, with more escaping our attempts to dispatch them. I haven't found any nests in garden since November, when the one in a hose-reel was sprayed, but there has got to be a large nest or a heap of smaller nests locally. I am going to be annoyed if they have been coming from the bush area on our plot, which I still haven't been into to check for wasp nests, but I've got a feeling they are hopping a fence or two. Because there were so many red admiral eggs on the batch I picked up just before Christmas, I had let some caterpillars go onto nettles that were unprotected, so I would have less of an issue with overcrowding in the butterfly castles. They had been doing fine, but with the sunny weather this week, the paper wasps are here in numbers, and they have finally found those caterpillars. I wasn't in time to save this large caterpillar. Needless to say, the other caterpillars I could find went back into the protection of the castles.

A European paper wasp chewing a red admiral caterpillar to feed its young

One sign of a lack of European vespula wasps in the garden is the pair of stick insects I found in the bush yesterday, when I went to see how the native nettles I planted were doing. As I mentioned before, the male that was by the house last year was only the second stick insect I have seen in my 20-odd years in Aotearoa New Zealand. If the pair of smooth stick insects Clitarchus hookeri I found weren't post-coital, they were gearing up for mating and I wondered if my presence was stopping the action. I took a few photos and scarpered to leave them to it. They still have to avoid all the birds, but the lack of the vespula wasps will help.

Smooth stick insects

I have seen a number of dragonflies in the garden recently, which I have been excited about. A male monarch chased one of them off - being aggressive enough to see off the sparrows as well - which was a shame, because it had a red body and if it was a wandering percher, those haven't been recorded on the North Shore on iNaturalist before. Another one disappeared once I spotted it over the kids area of the lawn, but a couple of evenings ago, I found one patrolling the area of the boardwalk and it continued to do so, even with me watching. I took a lot of photos and video, none of which are good enough to share, because it moved so fast, but its green eyes were very clear, meaning it wasn't a blue-spotted hawker, like the one we saw in November. If I had to guess I'd say Hemicordulia armstrongi, but it didn't settle. It may have done better to do so, because a family of pīwakawaka / fantails turned up and it became dinner.

Young fantails

The barrel pond is not established enough to be a lure for the dragonflies yet, and in terms of aquatic wildlife is not quite going the way I planned, but I do have the first beautiful waterlily flower this week, with another stem coming. With the way the flower is held above the water it is probably a tropical waterlily and should continue blooming through the warm weather. A lovely win.

A couple of plants that haven't made it are the kōtukutuku / tree fuchsia I was so proud of. I am not sure how the first died, but I think the second was simply over-run with weeds that have taken over along the stream banks. With so much work going into the butterfly beds, I haven't done any work on the stream and those beautiful trees have suffered the consequences of that. A five finger I replanted down near the stream also didn't make it. I was hoping that the trees would hold their own and would be established by the time I got to work on the stream properly, but clearly they need more careful tending than my 'plant and ignore' approach. The grasses look like they are all still there though, as is the puriri, so they should help hold things together next winter.

So, a lot of activity in the garden at the moment - plenty to enjoy and plenty of room for improvement. There just aren't enough hours in the day!