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.