Saturday, July 9, 2011

It's A Boy!

Getting up to work out at 5:30 in the a.m. more often than not ends up with me hitting the snooze button on the alarm a couple of times.  Then I remembered there was a butterfly about to birth.  Nothing like the right motivation.

My timing was perfect.  Here is the sequence of events.











You can barely see it, but if you look at the lower left wing, you can see a spot in the vein. This indicates it's a male.




Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Monarch Butterflies

monarchs flight day_40Amonarch eggNewly hatched 6.6.11Monarch 6.10.11Monarch 6.18.11indoor monarchs_20
indoor monarchs_17In the wildin a jarmonarch chrysalismonarchs flight day_7Emerging from a chrysalis
monarchs flight day_44monarchs flight day_41Amonarchs flight day_48monarchs flight day_26Wings still wetmonarchs flight day_82
monarchs flight day_61monarchs flight day_77monarchs flight day_117monarchs flight day_95monarchs flight day_146monarchs flight day_131

Monarch Butterflies, a set on Flickr.

Photostream of the butterlies

Butterflies are Free!

You can see his wings



I went to bed on Friday night feeling anxious. One of the monarch chrysalis' was changing.  The wings could be seen beneath the pale green of its cocoon. I didn't want to miss watching the butterfly burst forth from its shell, but it was late and I was tired.













small wings, large body
Still, I was up early on Saturday, checking on my butterfly's progress. Happily, he was still in his shell.  In the short time it took me to feed the dog, he had begun to emerge.

wings are uncurling, getting larger

















At first his wings seemed much to small and I worried that he was deformed in some way.  I took him outside into the sunshine. He began to move his wings, opening them, soaking up the warm morning air.  He sat on my finger, weightless, his feet sticky.




I went into the house and found another of the butterflies had emerged from her chrysalis.  I had two of them now.






They both hung on the bird feeder for awhile and then, worrying that a bird might think they looked too enticing, I moved them to the garden.  And that's where they stayed until they flew away.  They're both females, so I hope they'll soon mate and lay more eggs in my garden.
Free at last