Sooner than I thought and a visual of the lifespan of a Monarch

 I went outside about 11:30 and nothing had transpired. I again went out around 12:30 and Shazammmmmmm the butterfly had hatched ! 

This last image illustrates the process from a worm to a Chrysalis, and 

then to a butterfly. How cool is that !!!!

A clear chrysalis-hatching soon !!!!!

As you can see the Chrysalis is transparent which means "launch time" is coming soon.

Yesterday we let 2 out of the netting and they flew away with no problem. It is suggested that we wait for their wing to dry after fully expanding which takes several hours. This has been great fun.....

 

It's Happening !!!!!

 This morning much to our surprise the Monarchs started to climb out of their birth home. It takes actually quite a long time as they are folded in such way that the wings and body need to "unfold", quite a process to watch. The score now is two out, nine to go.....

Just getting out into the real world.....

Wings still wet and needing to dry to get stiff enough to fly.

I wonder if any one of our "children" will be the ones to fly to South America to

get together with other Monarchs to breed and fly back to lay their eggs in the States.

I'm looking forward to another summer of excitement next year watching the Monarchs 

as we will have a near forest of milkweed for them to graze on. This has been more

fun that I can tell you. Plant some milkweed on your patios and wait...you will attract 

Monarchs and perhaps see the process yourself of the worms becoming butterflies. 

Remember Don't kill the worms  that's the first evolutionary step for them.

                                                            Wings unfolded and drying....

Our family has exploded !!!!

 Several weeks ago we found our first Chrysalis and pretty well thought that was the end of the story. Little did we realize the number of chapters that were really available to us. We have found 11 so far and upon reading about their history and dangers posed to them primarily by wasps, we bought a "habitat" for them to keep them safe until their day of "showtime" !! 

We have started to call these "Cats" which is short for Caterpillar, professional

lingo you know..... We started to find them on top of leaves of milkweed plants

under the leaves, on the stems....everywhere.The eggs are white and almost invisible

 and we first notice the cats when they are about a quarter of an inch long. Surprisingly

they grow so fast that within a week they are about an inch long and by the next week 

they are fully grown about three inches long, and still devouring every leaf they can find.

The next step in their process of transformation into a butterfly is to attach themselves to 

a leaf, side of the habitat anything that stay stationary and bend into a "J" form to begin the process of making their cocoon.  

We haven't been able to see the weaving of the cocoon but we have a bunch in our habitat. 

We have had to reattach several of our cocoons that were made outside

of the habitat due to the possibly of death due to a hungry wasp.

What is really remarkable about the Monarch butterflies is the distance

they travel. One in five of them will make a journey of thousands of miles 

south to Mexico and even further to mate, fly back, and lay eggs next summer and die.

Stay tuned for the launching of the Monarchs within a week or so. Pretty

exciting to say the least and I'm already looking forward to next year. Last

Friday I made a special bed on our top patio expressly for milkweed plants

which are the food of preference of Monarchs. I'll keep you posted.