Speaking of monarchs

I've been meaning to post this for awhile. Since I'm running out of Courtney stuff because I won't have her until Friday, I thought this would be a good time to do it. :-)

I showed you the monarch caterpillars I'd found a few weeks ago here. I'm afraid they all died, though. They seem to do a lot better in a jar, protected from the elements. Five years ago, I captured several of them, fed them fresh milkweed leaves every day, and took photos of their progress along the way. I found that it takes four weeks from the time they hatch as a caterpillar out of the egg the butterfly laid, until they hatch as a butterfly from the chrysalis made by the caterpillar.

Here is a series of photos I took from the time the caterpillar began making its chrysalis until it finally hatched as a butterfly. (There is already one chrysalis hanging, plus one younger caterpillar. Watch the other one!) The photos are in order from left to right. Click on the photos to see them larger!

Then some time later, I had two more chrysalises hatch just moments apart, and I was lucky enough to be there with the camera!

It was a fun "adventure". Made me feel like a kid again, because I used to do this every summer when I was younger. :-)