Sunday, June 7, 2009

Butterfly Tale 2009

Once again we will follow the journey of a butterfly from the time the egg is laid until it emerges from its chrysalis and becomes a Monarch Butterfly.


My milkweed crop for 2009.

June 7, 2009: Watched a Monarch flying around my milkweed today. I thought she was trying to get nectar from the not yet opened flowers but it turned out she was laying her eggs right on the flower buds. I've never seen them do this before so hopefully the eggs will hatch and the caterpillars will survive. In 3 to 6 days the eggs should hatch.

June 11, 2009: The dark part at the tip of the egg is the caterpillar's head. Most likely it will emerge from the egg sometime today.

June 12, 2009: Thankfully the eggs hatched. Two tiny caterpillars next to a grain of rice so you can see how tiny they actually are.

June 14, 2009: The caterpillars (11 total) are now 3 days old. You can see they have grown a bit. The little black dot next to him is a piece of caterpillar poop. For some reason kids are obsessed with the poop, some grownups too LOL.