How do butterflies sip nectar?
If you were to look closely at a butterfly’s face, you would not see a nose but a proboscis. A proboscis is just like a big drinking straw. It’s usually coiled when the butterfly is at rest, and when it’s ready to drink, it uncoils the proboscis slowly. Butterflies’ noses are actually in their feet; they have smell receptors in their feet, legs and antennae. Offer them water Long days spent migrating or just flitting around the garden can make a butterfly thirsty, so make sure you offer them something to drink. Set up a butterfly bath — which is like a birdbath with sand in it. Put a little bit of water into a shallow bowl, not so much that they can drown in it, but just enough so the sand is wet. They’ll do what is called puddling; the males try to soak up nutrients like salts from the water and the sand. The males need sodium to get the energy in order to mate with the females.
