Trouble in paradise, 8/5/14

Our little butterfly garden at home has a problem.  The past two weeks of triple digit temperatures has really precipitated a decrease in butterflies.  An at the same time, the number of predators has stayed the same or possibly even increased.  After watching a red wasp kill and eat my only Black Swallowtail caterpillar this spring, I've declared war on any I see in my yard.  But they're not the only problem.  I've always had lots of Green anoles in the yard, but now they've migrated to the butterfly garden.  This one boldly snapped up a Fiery Skipper right in front of me.

So what to do?  I've been thinking about capturing them and releasing them elsewhere.  But then there's another problem, the exotic Brown Anoles have invaded our yard in the past year and I'm seeing babies. This morning I saw a confrontation between a Brown Anole and our native Green anole.  After the Brown Anole displayed the Green chased it away.  

So if I get rid of my Green Anoles, I may be losing my best defense against the Brown Anoles.  I have loved lizards since I was a small child so I really enjoy watching them.  I just hate to see them eating my butterflies. Meanwhile there's been plenty of Band-winged Dragonlets around this year.  Are they eating butterflies? Probably some.

But they haven't eaten all the butterflies.  I found this little Celia's Roadside-Skipper in the shade on the foundation of our house.

This nice Eufala Skipper is the first I've seen in our yard for a while.

These Little Yellows are trying their best to beef up our butterfly population.

I glimpsed this one yesterday and managed a weak photo this morning.  Our first Brown-banded Skipper, butterfly #85 for our yard.

I just saw the Brown-banded Skipper again and it was hanging out by the Barbados cherry which is the host plant for the species so maybe we can get some more (if the darn lizards don't eat them).