Emergence and Release of the Monarchs! Aug. 5 2010

The monarchs emerged this morning! Things happened very fast for the first 2, the third emerged about 2 hours later. As you can see in the pictures, they come out  with very fat abdomens and shriveled wings. The fluid in the abs is "pumped" into the wings to enlarge them and strengthen them, and the abs get mush smaller.

They spent the day in a mesh laundry basket filled with milkweed, butterfly weed and butterfly bush flowers. I went to Irvine, and they had the whole day to dry out their wings prior to release.

We released them at 6pm, when Steve got home. The first one landed close by and then took off across the yard towards the trees fairly quickly. The second flew to the woodpile, and the third we placed on the milkweed. The second flew off in about an hour, but the third didn't budge. Finally, just before dark, I made the decision to put her back in the laundry basket for the night. I felt that she was too close to the ground and feared a toad or something would eat her in the night. I'll let her go in the morning. I suspect she was the last one to emerge and just a couple of hours behind her sisters, as she has been in each stage of development. And they were, in fact, all females! I thought the third was a male at first because it looked like it had spots on the hind wings, but it must have just been the crinkle in the still wet wings that I was seeing.

I must say, I was a nervous wreck this morning! Many thanks to my wonderful Eaglet Momsters who have done this before, and to Kathy at Irvine for guiding this nervous mom through the process. I have loved being amazed by these creatures, and hope that I will be lucky enough to find more caterpillars to raise! I feel like I have done my small part to help the Monarch's, whose numbers are declining due to overwintering habitat loss in Mexico. I hope these 3 survive to lay many eggs...those eggs will be the generation that migrates this fall! I will be planting LOTS more milkweed for next year, too! Only 2 or 3% of eggs laid by Monarch's reach adulthood. Sadly, as I mentioned before, the caterpillars that I left outside on the plants were all lost. But these 3, and the 2 that I took to Irvine (which will be emerging tomorrow or Saturday) HAVE made it! I wish I could know where they go, and how they do. But of course, I can't know. I hope someday when I go to the Lord, he'll clue me in on how they did!