We picked up our milkweed caterpillars on Saturday and brought the little fellows home to their mesh enclosure. I was a little disappointed that this year we were not given a chrysalid, too, but I'm comforting myself with the knowledge that soon we'll see our own caterpillars transform.
Seven caterpillars of various size were in the container we were given. One of them was minuscule! Another was barely bigger than minuscule. The rest ranged in size to nearly fully grown.
Now, four days later, we can only find six in the cage. It seems that one is either very good at hiding or he has already met his demise. I'm going to assume the latter, Mr. Minuscule, and I can't seem to find one that looks small enough to be that him.Already one of the caterpillars is looking ready to pupate. He's huge! But memory is a flawed thing, and it's quite possible that he has one more instar to go through before we have a chrysalid. Time will tell!
And now, some of what we saw at the butterfly conservatory:
The hatching room (I'm sure that there is a more official name for it) was popular as people stood at the window, watching the butterflies emerge from their chrysalids. After hanging for a few minutes, a new butterfly would begin to gently move its wings, and then, with no ado at all, lift off from its perch. More than once we saw a new butterfly take wing and then land seconds later . . . on one of the people watching!
Brown-Eyed Boy wanted desperately for one of the butterflies to land on him, but it didn't happen.
At least not to him:
My Girl's bright bandanna was an attraction for this one!
The butterflies were very active, although there didn't seem to be a lot of them this year.
What we did manage to get a good look at, however, were the birds.
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