Nature Saturday

As we did last year, we spent yesterday looking for milkweed and tiny, white monarch butterfly eggs at Choctaw Trails in Clinton, Mississippi. The event was coordinated by the Clinton Community Nature Center as the beginning of their week long series of activities related to monarch butterfly education.

Searching for the eggs on milkweed was much more difficult this year because the milkweed was not yet as abundant (colder weather?) and there were fewer monarch eggs to be found and gathered. We were told by some of the naturalists on-site that the butterfly population is greatly reduced this year.

Several in our group also spent time searching for eggs on a plant that looked similar to milkweed but was not! We should have remembered the milky sap that oozes out when the plant is cut. We hunkered down close to the ground and tried to decide if tiny dots that we kept seeing were eggs. Alas, they were not! Some of these dots turned out to be aphids, some may have been pollen or small seeds, and still others may have been other insect eggs. Only when we were about to leave, disappointed and hungry, did we find some milkweed hiding close to our vehicles at the beginning of the trail.


Finally, I found one egg. In comparison, my family found about 20 eggs last year. We had so many that we gave them away to multiple classrooms in three schools and raised several ourselves with enough gathered milkweed for all. This year in our group of 5 families, I think we only found 5 or 6 eggs after almost two hours of hunting.

The egg is on lower left leaf.

After our egg hunt, we re-grouped for a picnic with friends, played outside, and ended our day by visiting the Nature Fest at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science where we learned about reptiles, bats, saw a colorful moth hiding near the ground, and raced a gopher tortoise. I also accepted a photography award in the museum's first annual Back to Nature Photography Contest for a photo taken last fall at the museum. The winning photo and a slide show of highlights from the rest of the day are below.

"Eye to Eye"
1st place in the "People and Nature" category

Monarch Hospitality

This female monarch butterfly visited our backyard butterfly bushes this afternoon. She stayed around for at least 3 hours-- until the sun started setting. She fed on the fresh, white flower clusters with purpose and was not easily frightened away by my presence or the bees that kept fighting her for the best feeding spots. At one point, she was on the same flower with two large bees.

When I first caught a glimpse of the butterfly outside, I thought I might have seen a bird. Monarchs are some of the largest butterflies that I see out there. I was so excited to discover another migrating monarch. Since our caterpillar rearing in April, I have learned so much about these remarkable creatures, and I feel some kinship with them. I'm on their side, and I hope that she can make it all the way to her winter roosting spot. Through our garden hospitality, I'm honored that I can give her some new energy for her journey.

Monarch Tagging

The Clinton Community Nature Center held a Monarch Tagging event on Saturday. Because we had been involved in raising monarch caterpillars from eggs back in April, we went out to learn more about this stage in the process of monitoring the monarch population. Dr. Bill Stark from Mississippi College shared a slide show of the monarch life cycle, other butterflies he has seen in the area, and information about monarch migration.

Tagging kits may be ordered here:

Monarch migration is recorded here:

We may start seeing migrating monarchs in Mississippi. There have been a couple of reports recently from our state. The butterflies that we tagged on Saturday had been raised from eggs found in September by students at Mississippi College. These butterflies will attempt to make the journey to Mexico, and the tags will help researchers better understand migration patterns.

Dr. Stark brought the butterflies to the event in small envelopes carried in a plastic box. He carefully pulled each butterfly out of the envelope, held the wings together between his thumb and index finger, and put an adhesive tag on the underside of the wing. He recorded the tag number, date, location, and sex of the butterfly. Holding it in the same manner, each child was able to take a butterfly outside to release into the wild.

My friend Sarah Campbell and her husband Richard captured a butterfly release and some amazing photos with their powerful cameras and photographic expertise. Please take a look at her blog entry for this event and make sure to watch the monarch movie on her website. You might recognize a couple of children in the movie! Sarah also has some monarch close-ups with and without tags here.

Happy Mother Nature Day

This is the box turtle found in our yard yesterday. She had been caught in the fence around our new compost pile until my son rescued her, observed her for a while, and let her go. There were also tiny snails attached to some eggshells in our compost pile.

These are the slugs that my children watched and fed after googling what they eat. They also googled what box turtles eat. They put them in the bird bath for a temporary home. My daughter grabs the camera now to document events like this. She took all of these photos except the butterfly photo.

This is the earthworm-- as long as the biggest feet in the photo-- that we saw after releasing a monarch butterfly. The children were amazed. As my son says, "Awesome!"

This is one of our butterflies on our lantana that grows inches every day. We gave two "about to emerge" butterflies to friends, so that they could watch and release miracles where they live. One may have emerged yesterday, and we are hoping the other comes out today.

We spent the day gardening yesterday-- a variegated basil variety, some trailing flowers in hanging baskets, seeds for zinnias, sunflowers, cilantro, watermelon, and pumpkin. My blog and my life have taken a decided turn toward nature, wouldn't you say? The butterfly experience combined with gardening at school have taken over parts of my life and influenced what I'm doing at home, what I'm reading, what I teach, and the knitting projects that I'm plotting and planning. I am still knitting and dreaming about the next log cabin blanket I might start that features colors from monarch caterpillars on one side and colors from monarch butterflies on the other side. Inspiration is everywhere, and I'm always on the look-out for it.

Happy Mother's Day!

King and Queen

The King

The Last Release

The Queen

The last of our monarch's at home emerged today. The first one, our only male, emerged a few hours before the female. One's name was Slinky and one was Yellow. I was never sure which was which. When the children came home from school along with a friend, we released the female onto the milkweed plant in our butterfly garden. I had released the male earlier to make room for the other butterfly in the small container. My son was thrilled that we finally had a male! He was still on the lantana plant when we got home from carpool, but he flew away to a tree when we went outside.

I couldn't resist a few more photos. Like my Japanese maple, I can't take enough to fully capture their beauty and to satisfy my wonder.

Now, we have 4 empty chrysalises and three empty containers-- unless we are lucky enough to have some new eggs or caterpillars on our milkweed plant. Our hearts and minds, however, are full, and we are as rich as kings and queens from this miraculous experience.

Butterfly Colors

Both of my cats were extremely interested in me taking photographs of Matilda, and I love how their fur coordinates so nicely with her orange, black and white. We had to be careful about making sure they were not outside getting too close because Matilda hung around our house for about 24 hours even after we released her. She didn't seem to want to fly. After hanging out in the garage all afternoon, I transferred her to the backyard after the rain stopped. I worried about her all day while I was at school and rushed home to find, thankfully, that she was not still on the lantana but enjoying her butterfly wings somewhere else.

I enjoyed her butterfly wings and butterfly body immensely. Because she didn't immediately fly off as Winslow did yesterday, I was able to take photograph after photograph of her and study her legs, feet, body, antennae, wings, spots, and face up-close and at leisure. What a gift. Some of my best photos are on this blog post from yesterday. I've included a couple more below.

Sabbath Haiku

Butterfly Sabbath
Open and clear chrysalis
Wings beat, rest, and fly

There has been all manner of excitement this Sunday. The children and I decided to take our sabbath at home. Our first chrysalis opened to reveal "a beautiful butterfly." We are still waiting for her to fly away. My daughter and I both let her crawl on our fingers, hands, and arms with her prickly feet. I transferred her to a butterfly bush in our little, backyard garden. The rain has died down.

The children both did their own blog posts about Matilda (who used to be Buddy) here and here. My daughter wrote her a poem and read it to her. . . hoping she would fly off.

I hope she will be happy for her brief life out in the world. She is resting in the wind and air now. I hope she is able to feel the sun, drink from flowers, walk across leaves, find another butterfly friend, and lay her eggs.

Milkweed

This is the milkweed plant we planted from a local nursery. I'm not sure if monarch butterflies will want to use it as their own "nursery" for eggs, but the yellow flowers are pretty and will go well in our butterfly/herb garden. From reading around on the the Internet, it seems that monarchs may prefer certain types of milkweed, and there are hundreds of varieties. One site says that this type is a preferred host for monarchs. We'll see. This is a variety called Asclepias Curassvica or "Silky Gold Butterfly Flower." Even if it doesn't attract future generations of eggs and caterpillars, it will be used as a nectaring source for numerous butterfly species.

Our four caterpillars at home have all turned into chrysalises. My daughter's caterpillar at school is a chrysalis. My son's caterpillar at school was in a "J" formation when he left on Friday. The first graders at St. Therese have one chrysalis, one about to be a chrysalis, and one still eating. My friends who gathered eggs with us that beautiful Saturday have many chrysalises and large caterpillars just waiting for their own transformations.

Throughout this butterfly project, connections and intersections have been made in so many ways-- with books, poetry, research on the Internet, science, nature, plants, friends, students, photography, e-mail conversations and sharing--and wonder. I'm loving it.

From Above

I love these photos my daughter took over the weekend. I've been so busy lately with end-of-school "stuff," that I didn't have many photos from which to choose and about which to write. When I downloaded these from the camera, I claimed them for a few thoughts. Bailey is looking out the front window in his favorite spot. Charlie is in the kitchen looking like he might want to pounce down upon the laptop cords. "Is it a snake or a mouse with a really long tail?"

If someone--God-- were looking down on me right now, I'm afraid I would not look as peaceful. I have my irons in too many fires. Work, schools, home. Tomorrow, I play "Mother Goose" for a special first grade program, and I'm pulling together the last pieces for a family arts festival. Whew. After this weekend, I will breathe a sigh of relief.

When I'm busy, my family feels it. The house gets cluttered. The laundry piles up. My patience is short. I need more forgiveness than usual.

I slept with our last caterpillar assuming the "J position" on the bedside table last night. I knew he or she was close to transforming into a chrysalis, and I really wanted to see it. I tried to stay awake, but I needed sleep just as much as I wanted to see the metamorphosis. Finally, I turned out the light and trusted that the transformation would happen even without my eyes-- and that someone else might be watching even while I was sleeping.

I hope that there is someone above, below, around, or in us watching all of us-- people and caterpillars and more-- in our daily transformations. Even so, there was another chrysalis to behold this morning--green, gold, and still-- and this is something for which to be thankful.

Metamorphosis

I started out looking for a video about butterfly metamorphosis-- particularly a monarch caterpillar pupating. This morning, I missed seeing this "live" because I was on the computer. It happened in about one and a half hours. Buddy was in a "J" position at 6:30 am. He was a full chrysalis at 7:45 am. My daughter blogged about it and took photos here.

So, I searched my best friend, YouTube, for videos knowing that others have caught the mysterious and miraculous process on film and pixels. I wasn't disappointed.

Here is a short video of the process from egg to butterfly:



You can find many others by searching for "monarch butterfly" or "pupa" or "metamorphosis." It is truly remarkable. When I was a child, this was not possible. I would have been lucky if my local public library had a book with photos of the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. Now, the world is at our desktop or laptop. I love it.

Winslow is now in the "J" position.

Tending to Nature

Meet Winslow and Helen. Along with Buddy, Tiny, Slinky, Hidey 1, and Hidey 2, my family is rescuing a few monarch butterflies and watching their journey from egg to butterfly. I'm having a blast. My kids are, too. In just one week, little white eggs hatched into tiny caterpillars. One caterpillar, Buddy, is already 2 and 1/2 centimeters and growing.

I bought a milkweed plant from the nursery today to plant in our backyard butterfly garden. The milkweed on which we found the eggs is a different variety and was in a large pasture. We'll see if this nursery plant will attract the next generation of eggs. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the butterflies we release lay their eggs on our new milkweed plant so that we can watch the process all over again?

Butterfly Egg Hunt

This morning, we participated in a different kind of egg hunt-- we searched for Monarch butterfly eggs. The event was sponsored by the Clinton Community Nature Center at Choctaw Trails in West Jackson. Apparently, the fields there house a large collection of milkweed which happens to be the plant that Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on.

It was a glorious morning full of possibility and hope. The sun shown, and the cool wind blew. We ran through open spaces and paid attention to the ground. We searched for milkweed and examined each leaf for the tiny, white eggs. Amazing. Miraculous.

It is now our responsibility to tend the resulting caterpillars. We have instructions. We have the supplies. Now, all we need is time and care and hope. The eggs which result in caterpillars and eventually into butterflies will be ours to release into the world. We will have helped the process, a little. We will have rescued a few butterfly eggs and larvae from fire ants and other predators which are serious threats. In a very small way, we will have aided the earth, the environment-- creation.

What a perfect way to celebrate Holy Saturday and the coming of Easter tomorrow. We were with dear friends-- moms with children as full of possibility as the butterfly eggs.

Happy Easter-- Happy Passover-- Happy Spring.