Chris planted milkweed a few years ago and we enjoyed having a few monarch caterpillars a couple years ago . One of them even made its chrysalis on Owen's bulldozer toy, then I pulled an all-nighter hoping to see it emerge, only to have it emerge at naptime the following day when no one was watching. That hasn't compared to this year though! One afternoon we counted 8 chrysalises and 13 caterpillars but know there are more that we haven't found!
This is the main patch of milkweed they've been on:
This is what it looks like today:
Evidence of some hungry hungry caterpillars!
They start off so small!
But get to be so big!!
Can you spot the 6 caterpillars in this picture?
They seem to be sharing nicely at least! It must be a tasty leaf!
They eat the leaves right down to the spine!
Once they get nice and big, they seem to go find their special spot and rest for a half day horizontally. Eventually they start hanging in a J-shape for about half a day. They seem to pulse/strain a bit...not sure if that's loosening their skin or what?! The next time you check, you see a perfectly formed chrysalis!! They pick some interesting spots! This one is on the soffit under the roof!
Phase One:
Phase Two:
Phase Three:
We've been lucky enough to catch them at just the right time twice to see their back split open and within 5 minutes they're into their chrysalis. It's remarkable to watch!! Here's a time lapse and a real-time transformation.
We've even had some "pair up" in their location:
This one is on the kids' soccer net:
We have two blueberry bushes with these net covers to keep the birds away. We started off with one on each.
Then two...
Then three!!
On a large pot...because why not??
I call this picture "The Circle of Life" haha! At least the caterpillars don't eat the spine of the leaf! They eat right up to it though!
I'm curious what caused this one to have a black spot:
We learned online a couple years ago that they'll turn dark and transparent before emerging. We haven't caught the emerging process but enjoying looking for signs that they're getting ready!
Almost ready!
I'm not sure what the red liquid is?! Maybe it was too close to the siding.
Unfortunately we've found a couple that were struggling or had fallen. We've been able to get two of them to grab onto a stick then they're able to hang to dry their wings.
This poor little guy emerged when we were getting a lot of rain from Hurricane Florence and was found walking, dragging his wings. He grabbed onto the stick and stayed there to dry for a couple hours, then flew off! Hopefully he flew far enough west to be clear of the rain bands quickly!
We did our best to protect a couple caterpillars from the rain of the hurricane!
They've been so much fun to watch!!!
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