Four of the five monarch caterpillars have transformed into beautiful butterflies now. We have been releasing them as they were ready. The first was a male which we released in the courtyard. He was hesitant but eventually crawled out onto my hand. We took him around the courtyard from flower patch to flower patch until we found a group of flowers which he seemed to like enough to crawl onto.
A few days later the next pair, both females, came out. One had troubles getting it’s proboscis put together. When the butterfly first comes out of the chrysalis it’s proboscis is actually in two pieces. The butterfly uses it’s–often hidden–front legs to assemble the two pieces into one continuous tube. The other female’s right hind wing was still curled and folded. She could still fly but only short distances.
After they had about 8 hours to get themselves together we walked down to the Ft. Rachel Marina and looked for a good spot to release them. On the walk we decided to give them both overnight to rest more and see if the female with the curled wing could get it fully inflated. So after giving the butterflies a nice walk and some fresh air, we returned to the house and gave the butterflies a snack of sugar syrup.
The next morning the fourth butterfly, a male, came out of his chrysalis in the early morning. After giving him all day to get ready (no issues for him with wings or proboscis) we took all three of them back out . The last house on the road to the marina has an absolutely beautiful garden which we have enjoyed since moving here. We decided to release all three of the butterflies there. Each of us gently eased one of them out of the net cage and placed it on a flower. The females each settled down on the flowers, but the male decided to explore the boats in the marina.
We now have one caterpillar left. He hasn’t been eating much either. We suspect he may miss his friends. We’ll see if he perks up. All in all though it has been a successful project. In the wild only 1 in ten caterpillars becomes a viable adult butterfly. Supposedly this year there appears to be a surplus of milkweed and a mysterious absence of wild monarchs…