Swallotail!

And now the really exciting news!  I found a swallowtail caterpillar on the parsley I planted by the pond!!!  I'm so excited, I keep checking on it.  It is tiny, black with white in the middle.  It "stuck its tongue" out at me yesterday, that orange gland they use as a defense.  I'll take photos.

Catch Up

Generation two is well on its way, but with many losses.  To date: 

• 6 chrysalis
• 6 caterpillars
• 3 new butterflies released

Sad news, every day I find a dead caterpillar!  Two died hanging in their J's.  Two chrysalis's died; one was not formed correctly.  I found a couple caterpillars on the bottom of the safehouse, and a couple right on the stem, seemingly in "mid bite."  Total: 7.  Reason: unknown.  Because so many have died, I am thinking its because the milkweed plant they were on got residue from the stain that was put on the pond's bridge.  I had thought the stain would wear off or wash off; it did not.  Ten days ago, I pulled out all of those milkweed plants.  I found 10 caterpillars on them, and put them in the safehouse; I have found dead caterpillars since.

I sometimes think it might be best to leave the caterpillars in the wild, and so have found a couple and have been watching them.  Today I checked on I've been watching for about a week.  It had grown quite large, but this afternoon when I went to check on it, I couldn't find it.  I saw black, crumpled skin and what looks suspiciously like a caterpillar head on a leaf....I think I do need to put the caterpillars in my safehouse when I find them.  While searching for my large caterpillar friend, I found 1 tiny one on the same plant and brought him in.

Speaking of this, I inspected the two big old plants by our pond and counted 3 on one plant, 4 on the other.  I may put them in the safehouse tomorrow.

Generation 2

I have 4 microscopic caterpillars, and one egg.  One egg hatching this morning, joining the slightly bigger than microscopic caterpillar, and I found two more in the backyard on the milkweed by the pond.  They are too tiny to photograph with my phone-camera.

Suprise!

Yesterday morning, I opened our laundry cabinet door, and out flew a butterfly!  I followed it around, and ushered it outside.  It had to have been in there for days!  Maybe a week or more...I know one of my caterpillars was "MIA" so must have somehow crawled out and into the cupboard.  Looking around, I found the empty chrysalis.  take a look:

Here is the last of "generation 2011/1" hatching this morning:

It's a girl!  I released her early afternoon...she flew directly to the Pear tree.

According to my blog and hand written notes, my Hatched and Released count is lacking:
#5  on June 25
#6 on June 26
#7 on July 2, released by Allie
#8, and 9 July 4
#10 & 11 July 5
#12 July 7
#13 July 9

I have 18 empty chrsalis', so obviously, somewhere along the line I did not keep track properly since I have dates of hatching and releasing only for 12 of them.  Yes, I must get better at documenting.

The good news is, all of my "generation one" caterpillars have hatched!  While I found two caterpillars dead, and one MIA (more on that in the next post) all the others went into their chrysalis', hatched successfully and are flying around now; I see Monarchs in my back yard and believe them to be "mine!"

The one that hatched today is the last of generation one.  She made his chrysalis on a leaf.  Cleaning the safehouse out, I dropped the stem and I know the chrysalis smacked hard on the floor, so I was wondering if I had caused damage...no I did not. 

A Day Made for Butterflys

Perched on my finger, this butterfly is ready to be released!

He flew off, but landed on the deck, so I carefully put him on our lilac bush.

Buttefly #4, another boy, was out of his chrysalis and hanging on the shell early this morning when I got up.  It's a hot, sunny day--ideal butterfly weather--and I released him into the garden. 

Meanwhile, my timing was perfect to observe, from start to finish, a caterpiller transform from caterpillar to chrysalis.  It was exactly like in the movie "Men in Black" when the alien, clothed in a man's body, unzips his "human" skin and a slimy, mishapen, colorful alien emerges out of the body. 

Here's the play-by-play:  Hanging in it's J for hours, I noticed that the caterpillar relaxed it's "J" position.  It was hanging straight, and appeared somewhat lifeless.  I thought perhaps it had died.  But then, I noticed an almost imperceptible swelling at the back of it's head and ever so slight upturn like it was resuming the J position.  The skin on the back, just behind the head split open and a bright green blob (almost like the slime you purchase as a kids' toy) bulged out.  The green bulge grew larger as the caterpillar's green, black and white skin split further along its back and soon began to peel upward as the green bulge grew larger and bulgier.  The whole thing circled around and around; it appeared this process took some effort.  The tiny black caterpillar legs, which are on its skin, were moving as the skin peeled away.  In one to two minutes, the caterpillar skin was at the top, like a discarded suit and the green blob was circling around and around, until the skin fell off.  The now green awkwardly shaped oblong blob that was no longer caterpillar and not-quite chrysalis circled round and round, slowly taking shape as the chrysalis.  Although I did not touch it, it looked wet and I imagine the green chrysalis was slowly hardening.  This process took quite a awhile, less than an hour, but more than 30 minutes, until the perfectly shaped chrysalis with gold dots hung still, where it will stay for 10-14 days. 

Butterly #3 is a Girl!

And here she is!  Checking on the chrysalis' last night, they all looked brilliant green, with dots of gold.  This morning when I got up, there was this perfect butterfly, patiently hanging from it's chrysalis.  With two egg pouches on both lower wings, there's no doubt this is a girl.  I released her in the backyard, and she immediately flew off.  I expect one butterfly a day now.  I need to find more caterpillars!