Searching for Becker's White Butterflies near Palmdale CA

[notmyselfsober]

wwwwwwwwwoooooooowwwwww i never seen a butterfly or a catapillar

[jcmegabyte]

I bet that felt weird! XD

[maravaluz]

my son loves butterflies!

[jcmegabyte]

It's a very interesting hobby, to raise and study them - so much to see and learn. Thanks for watching and commenting! :-)

[louiseduvee]

Is your channel under-played, or what? This is fascinating.

[jcmegabyte]

I'm sure there are lots of people out there who would enjoy seeing my work, but you know how show biz is - without big money pushing material out to the public, the best you can do have lots of patience and wait to be found.

Fortunately things have changed and it's really great that we now have venues like YouTube to broadcast our works. This has opened-up a whole new world of opportunitiy for many of us creative types!

Thanks so much for watching and commenting =)

[shadowsniperz]

wow how many did they say there were

[shadowsniperz]

thanks ill keep that in mind. but last year i went in my front yard and there were hundreds of painted lady butterflies. and i started to wonder why there were so many. i guess it was the migration

[jcmegabyte]

...it wasn't just your yard - there were millions and millions of them all over southern California. There was even a few news reports about how many there were. :-)

[Pebbleprominent]

In Britain, there was a MASSIVE influx of Painted ladies as well. They all came up from Northern Africa. The first taste of the influx I found was when I was on an offshore island on the North of Ireland, and There hundreds simply flying in from the sea. I was sitting on the shore watching them fly over my head.

[jcmegabyte]

It's interesting to know that those huge outbreaks happen in other places, too.

Heavy rainfall and host plant growth creates perfect conditions for the larvae, so their predators can't keep up!

The massive migrations are still somewhat of a mystery, although it's probably just an evolved behavior that's contributed to the species' success.

Here, they seem to migrate mostly to the NNW, and it's supected that they use the Earth's magnetic field lines to navigate. Interesting stuff! :-)

[shadowsniperz]

almost forgot about the painted lady butter fly

[shadowsniperz]

i live in palmdale and we have so many nice butterflies like the swallow tails monarchs and these but since last year i havent seen much of these anymore

[jcmegabyte]

You probably won't see as many in town but if you live (or go) out to the more open, wilderness areas at the right time of year, you should see plenty... The best time of year for the desert is late Feb through mid April. Look for the giant Painted Lady migrations to start in March/April some time. They should be EVERYWHERE if there is enough rainfall this winter. :-)

[Ahwri]

I have to admire the hours of surveillance it must have taken to acquire these video clips! Nice vid.

[jcmegabyte]

I did enjoy this particular outing. It took about 6 hours out in the desert to get all the footage from which these scenes were selected. The work in the lab for the upcoming Becker's White life cycle took much longer. Thanks for the view and cool comment! :-)

[mentalmoomin]

Absolutely lovely!.. how do they not get damaged..in and out of these spiny looking flowers.. xxx

[jcmegabyte]

Actually, they get very beat-up by the plants they fly around, as well as birds and other predators taking bites out of their wings. Butterflies are only bright and shiny when they first emerge. By the time most are only a few weeks old, their wings are so tattered they can barely fly... and that is if they can survive that long at all. It's a tough life being a butterfly! Thanks for watching! :-)

[mentalmoomin]

Aw that is so sad.. to have wings but to be barely able to fly.. I bet they look just as beautifull and intrigueing.. A beautifull tradgedy.. Well I have definitly been battered and torn..I am finding even more synchronicity between me and butterflies ! :).. They are to me a poetry.. thankyou Chris for the joys you bring to me and so many others xxx

[jcmegabyte]

Well I hope I can continue to brighten your day and heal your wear and tear! :-) I plan to do a lot more filming in the field this year, as soon as the season gets under way, so be watching for that as well as more life cycle documentaries from my "laboratory". Thanks so much for your support and great words of encouragement! Smiles and huggs! :-)

[mentalmoomin]

I shall look forward very much to that ! .. And it is more than a pleasure to be supportive and encouraging.. Big smiles and hugs :) xxx

[bugvision]

Hard to believe there is so much life out there in such a lifeless looking place!

[myjugsarehuge]

That butterfly reminds me of Marbled Whites we used to get in the UK, not sure if we have them in Ireland? Love the shot at 1.37 of the caterpillar nibbling away.

[jcmegabyte]

I pulled out my field guide "Butterflies of Britain and Europe" and looked up some Pieridae - the Bath White (Pontia daplidice) and Small Bath White (Pontia chloridice) are very similar and boviously very closely related. You have a good eye for species ID! :-)

[happyfallen]

great sound and great vid 5/5 & favd & subd (:

[jcmegabyte]

Thank you for the kind words :D

[dbootsthediva]

Interesting Video. Your country side in Palmdale seems to

be experiencing the same phenemona of the

imprint of the energy on the ground everywhere

you film. Were my eyes deceived me of what was

embedded in that butterflys wings of

tubular letter forms? I swear that was

a huge J on the edge of that butterflys

wing. Almost like they were a stencil of

JKL

[jcmegabyte]

There are all kinds of interesting patterns to be found on butterfly wings - the large eyespots are the most famous but you can requently find numbers and letters too!

[dbootsthediva]

To be able to frequently find letters and

numbers would mean the energy field is so

strong it is imprinting its synthetic

footprint. Are you saying, letters n numbers, are

suppose to be a normal pattern formation

in butterfly wings?

[jcmegabyte]

Since letter and number symbols are such simple patterns, and there are 600,000+ species of butterflies/moths, there are BOUND to be some coincidental similarites. The odds are simply stacked WAY in favor of it. For example - google "88 butterfly" and be totally amazed! :-) Check out all the Diaethria genus butterfly species to see how natural wing pattern variation makes "89", "86" and other numbers too! Just keep in mind - butterflies were here before long written numbers ever existed. :D

[dbootsthediva]

But the odds have considerably been shortened since they introduced their scalar polarized plasma static energy field that we all are living and breathing in. Too much electromagnetic energy radiation leaves behind its marks, its synthetic imprint. 60 plus years of experimenting with it will do that to a species. Including human. Can't compare something like butterflies were here before numbers existed if all the butterflys from way back then are all dead so no examples.

[londonpenda]

Thank you for that.

[MelodxKay]

Great video 5 stars

[jcmegabyte]

Glad you liked - thanks for watching! :D

[limeslimey]

Beautiful. I love butterflies!

[jcmegabyte]

This one probably isn't the most colorful or spectacular of species, but when seen up close they really are quite beautifully marked. Thanks for the view/comment :D

[sabrina3309]

Wonderful video! Thanks for sending me it!

[jcmegabyte]

Thank YOU for watching! :D

Cheers!

[Shirou]

butterflies are so magical~ I hope they never die out and stay with us for millions of years to come! :D

[jcmegabyte]

Me too. If we humans (or other catastrophes) don't trash the planet, it would be very interesting to see what lepidoptera diversifies into over that span of time! :D

[phillaneseventhirty]

Very nice. Quite tranquill music. Have you encountered any snakes in the destert i would love to see the sidewinder. Keep up the great work!

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for the nice comment :D

I rarely see snakes on the flatter desert areas - they seem most common in more rocky places. I've never seen a sidewinder ever, but I'd sure like to some day! I hear you can spot them in sandy washes near the Devil's Punchbowl.

I saw at least 4 rattlers in the Dead Mountains (near Laughlin, NV) and a couple at Rock Corral (nearly stepped on one of them) but otherwise my pit viper encounters are pretty rare. Still, I KNOW they're out there!

[AustDingo]

Beaut Vid. Love the scenery. Thanks cobber

√√√√√ and shared

Dingo

[jcmegabyte]

Once again - thanks for watching and sharing! :D

[mettanc]

so lovely!!!!

thank u.

michael

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks! :D

[ithinklikeacow]

I love the caterpillars of this species they are beautiful

[jcmegabyte]

I agree - Becker's White is one of the most brilliantly-marked adults (especially the females) of all the Pontia species, and the larva is very colorful too. :D Thanks for watching!

[GeraldBoyClassical]

Very cool! Eggs, larva and butterfly too, wow!

[jcmegabyte]

Yes it was quite the outing - I couldn't ask for better conditions - butterflies and early stages were EVERYWHERE. All my trips should be so lucky! :D

[paulientjess]

Nice movie Chris!!!

Thanks!!

Greetings Paula(:-))xxx

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for watching and good to hear from you... You've been scarce lately - whatcha been up to? ;D

[jules10109]

Wow! You always have such great quality on all your vids~~ XD Thanks for shaing with us YouTubers....^-^ I liked that lens view shot you got of the caterpillar at 1:41, very cool. :)

[jcmegabyte]

That's a jeweler's eyeloupe - if you hold it up to the camera lens it adds a lot of extra "zoom" magnification. I actually filmed one of those eggs hatching under my microscope - footage to be included in the detailed life cycle documentary. Thanks for watching and commenting! :D

[hnoaynny]

this is a great video, thanks for sending this to me i loved it, you send me videos to me any time you want

[jcmegabyte]

It was my pleasure - thanks for watching and commenting :-)

[bagwhanbill]

cheers nice one 5*****

[PressPlay2Go]

Very enjoyable video and music. Thanks for posting.

[musumeci2008]

Superbe.

Je suis en train d'en préparer deux sur les cactus et les succulentes.

Mais ce sont les miennes, donc beaucoup moins exotique que vous.

Amitiés,

Christian.

[jorj119]

very interesting&nice,thanks

[jcmegabyte]

...probably stuff you'd NEVER see otherwise. :D Thanks for watching!

[clayLavl]

Nice vid.

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks! :-) ...it's probably more interesting if you're into bugs and such hahaha :D

[destroyahdes]

Wow that's cool. I love deserts. Beautiful footage. And I couldn't believe that scene. The poor female hadn't even dried her wings and a male mated with her.  So typical of insects. I've seen that happen with wasps too.

[jcmegabyte]

Hahaha yea those boys don't waste any time - and you can see other males showing up (too late) as well!

It's funny how much of a misnomer the term "desert" really is - it's anything but deserted :D

Thanks for watching!

[destroyahdes]

Indeed. What looks like a wasteland is filled with life if you sit still and look for it.