Insects
Dear reader,
after my home biotope was completed of course also the neighboring area shouldn´t be a sterile lawn anymore. I had a little piece of paradise for insects in my mind. Thought about it and done! The lawn was removed and a special seed mixture for insects was spread. Especially for bees and butterflies.
Besides of that I had seen at a nearby river bank that there were growing wild blood flowers (Asclepias curassavica) and I watched that there were flying lots of monarch butterflies. This very beautiful butterfly seems to like this plant and its flowers. And since I saw lots of seeds there, I took some to my biotope. With success! Because I kept my becoming biotope meadow humid, many little plants were growing quickly and soon increased by themselves. And to my great joy it didn´t take long until the monarch butterflies felt also here at home and practically flying also here all year round and reproduce. But also lots of common blue, clouded yellow, swallowtail, painted lady and other kinds of butterflies settled down.
And it is like I could look into a new world! Not only because of the colorful butterflies! No, soon I was crawling on all fours 
through the biotope to discover the as well fascinating world of beetles, bugs, mantis, shorthorned grasshoppers, katydids, bees and all other kind of insects who now live there and reproduce.
It was my first intention, to give a piece of paradise back to this animals, they give back to me of that many times more! They carried me off in their wonder world. Day by day I can learn from and about them something new and I am enthralled in what the evolution had succeeded and how the 'six-legged' manage their life.
For many years I belonged to them who thought that it´s better to hold away from myself crawling animals. Today I have a complete different view: it is unbelievable enthralling and exciting to make an excursion through the world of insects in my own garden! Of course mostly with the camera.
Birgit