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I believe we’re just about due for an update on the Monarch butterflies, so consider this to be it.

The past couple of days were probably the peak as far as butterflies eclosing. We had 8 on Sunday, and 7 more yesterday. Most interesting in all of this is that we had more emerging butterflies than expected. It seems that at least four caterpillars must have struck out from their trays to points unknown to us (this aside from the three that formed chrysalises in unique spots such as the curtains). On Sunday, Don kept calling to me, “Hey, there’s another butterfly flying around in the living room.” We knew they weren’t emerging from any of the known chrysalises, so they had to have been coming from elsewhere. I did manage to find a couple of empty chrysalises attached to the curtain rods and some window mouldings behind the curtains. So, now the mystery has been solved — of why it was that the head counts in the caterpillar trays never seemed to work out quite right at times. I was beginning to think I was losing it as far as keeping score, but it was just the caterpillars playing tricks on me.

Anyhow, as of this morning, we have tagged and released 26 butterflies (this does not include the first small batch of butterflies that were released before the tags arrived). We have another 12 chrysalises waiting to eclose, and another 7 caterpillars that are close to pupating. There may yet be a few more chrysalises in hiding around the house. In all but one instance, the butterflies seem to have emerged quite strong and able to fly well within a day. I have one butterfly that may or may not be ready to fly today. It’s one of the “rogues” that eclosed out of sight. I found it stuck to the floor by some of the fluid that drips from the butterflies after they eclose. Its wings were quite creased, so I’m not sure if it will be okay. I straightened them out and then left the butterfly in the sun porch to see what happens.

My usual strategy with the butterflies has been to keep them in the screened sun porch for a few hours to a day depending on the weather. This gives them some “safe time” to strengthen their wings and make some test flights before they fly off into the great outdoors. I believe it’s a good system. On cool mornings, they can be found lined up, hanging from the tops of the windows frames (see above).

To minimize handling, we don’t tag until just before we’re ready to release each butterfly. On the weekend, my niece was visiting, so we enlisted her help in sticking tags to wings and setting each butterfly free (see below). She particularly enjoyed releasing the butterfly, calling out encouragement to each butterfly as it flew off across the garden. It seems like a good activity for involving children, so I can certainly see why some schools are rearing Monarch caterpillars and tagging the butterflies as class projects. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a teacher from this area who read about my current project here on the blog. She was hoping to have her class finish raising some caterpillars that she had started from eggs collected in August. I hope that project will go well.

That’s about it for this Monarch report. I think we’ll be to the end of the caterpillar rearing within another few days, and then it will just mean a couple of more weeks of butterflies eclosing, and we’ll be done for this season.

Tags: Monarch tagging, Danaus plexippus, Monarch butterfly