She didn’t seem to mind at all when I stuck my camera in her face.

Beautiful.

~~Rhonda

We waited until DH came home after work to release the first one. He had to carefully take the screen off the top of the tank as two caterpillars have decided to attach to it to pupate. Silly bugs.

The butterfly is a female, which you can tell by the blue on her wings. She sat on DD’s finger for a long time. When we released the second butterfly yesterday, it didn’t wait for a photo op. It sprang into the air and took off for the top of the maple.

DD set the butterfly on a butterfly bush blossom and she seemed quite content to rest there.

DD was able to watch the third butterfly emerge this morning before I came downstairs. When I asked if she took pictures, she said, “No, I was too excited.”

~~Rhonda

I’m posting this photo in a large size so you can see the amazing beauty and detail of the wing scales. Isn’t God’s gift of creation amazing?

Buttercup is fascinated!

We put some butterfly bush blossoms and a couple of purple coneflower blossoms in the tank to provide nectar. When she gets home from school, DD will release the butterfly in the back yard.

We’re hoping to watch a butterfly as it emerges. If we do, I’ll post some pictures.

~~Rhonda

We use a large fish tank to house them, and a piece of window screen with an elastic band to top the tank. To keep their parsley fresh, we use a small plastic container with holes in the lid. We filled the container with potting soil, soaked with water.

The parsley is pushed into the holes in the container lid. The water keeps it fresh and the dirt helps to hold it upright.

All the holes are filled with parsley. It’s amazing how quickly the caterpillars will eat everything put out for them.

In the tank, there is also a small vase with parsley. This is the “nursery” where we keep eggs and newly hatched caterpillars as they are too small to put with the larger ones. The larger caterpillars are becoming so voracious they might eat the parsley right out from under the tiny ones.

If you look closely, you will also see the sticks we put into the tank for chrysalis formation.

Newspaper lining the bottom makes cleanup easy. The caterpillars are eating and pooping machines. The only other things they do are rest and molt.

We now have ten chrysalises and another caterpillar will be a chrysalis by tomorrow. Two others have failed to develop properly. DH brought more parsley in this AM and found two newly hatched caterpillars on one stem. They are so tiny! We put them in the nursery vase and will keep an eye on them.

Because it is late in the season, the butterflies may not emerge until next April or May. We shall see!

~~Rhonda

Then I turned my back for ten minutes, while I checked email on my laptop…turned around and what did I see?

::sigh:: We are up to six chrysalises now. There are eight caterpillars to go, so I am hoping to catch the molt on video with another candidate. We shall see!

~~Rhonda