When we came home from our Cape Cod vacation last week Jessica and Patrick found multiple monarch caterpillars on the milkweed in their yard. (Say that 10 times fast!) Having never seen a monarch caterpillar in person, I headed over two days later to meet the little buggers.
So cute.
And colorful. I loved watching them munch away on the milkweed. They are truly fascinating creatures.
Jess and Patrick also saw a very green chrysalis. I love that rim of gold dots all around the edge.
When I went it had turned very dark.
And later that day, when Jessica got home from work, this beautiful monarch butterfly had emerged. You can still see the empty chrysalis behind him in the photo.
I’ll admit to not knowing much about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly so I did some googling to educate myself. This website has some cool photos of the monarch caterpillar as it becomes a chrysalis. And this one has some excellent information on creating a butterfly habitat.
The milkweed I planted never came up but I’m going to try again next year because this is a very cool thing.
Wow, that is so amazing! We found one a few years ago and a lady from church took him to her house to protect him and watch it become a butterfly.
This is so very cool! Great photos!
I planted milkweed and only got 3 monarchs but it was so fun watching them transform. Next year I’m planting twice as much milkweed. They are beautiful!
This seems like a photographer’s dream garden project.
The caterpillar looks like self/striping sock yarn. Why hasn’t a yarn dyer made caterpillar colors?
Love the Monarch cycle! We had a couple this year and I re-homed a few to the milkweed field down the street as they had stripped mine clean. Glad you got to experience it Carole – isn’t that gold band amazing? 🙂
How amazing that you got to see the entire life cycle of the butterfly!
This is wonderful, and now I want some milkweed! They’re beautiful at every stage, and monarchs can certainly use all the help they can get. Hurrah for milkweed and multiple monarchs!
Caterpillars>Chrysalis>Butterfly… endlessly fascinating!! It’s so cool that you saw that. Good luck with your milkweed next year!
That truly needs to be a yarn colorway, with that little hint of robin’s egg blue.
A VERY cool thing! I have seen lots of Monarch caterpillars munching away in my garden . . . but I have yet to find a chrysalis. I know they’re out there . . . but (for me) they’re elusive! Great photos, Carole — and such a marvel!
Such wonderful photos. You will have fun sharing these things with Jackie!!
I love this post! Thanks for sharing the spectacular pictures. Hello, Monarch!
Great photos! No monarchs in this part of the world sadly. No milkweed, either, which is probably why.
That is VERY cool!
Very cool! I’ve been following Lavanya Patricella on Instagram mostly for her knitting but she has been doing a lot of butterfly posts. The links were so interesting, I didn’t know about the life cycle.
Very cool indeed!! (I think you should make a book about it for Jackie!)
We have them all over the place at work…I especially love their Chrsyalis with their gold sparkles! I have seen the dark chrysalis just before it hatches but I have never seen one hatch yet.
Is that bit of orange on the dark chrysalis a wing showing through? How wonderful!!