Nature Study ~ Saying Goodbye to Our Monarch Butterflies

Watching the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a Monarch butterfly first hand was the highlight of this summer’s nature study.  I wrote about finding Monarch caterpillars and observing them form a chrysalis a couple weeks ago.   We watched the jewel-like chrysalis and patiently waited.  Finally one morning the first chrysalis looked dark, and if you looked closely you could see the beautiful orange and black wing pattern!

We were so excited and began watching, hoping to see it emerge.  I had read they usually emerge mid-morning so we tried taking turns watching and I set my camera up for time lapse photography.  We watched all morning and my camera took photos until the battery died…no butterfly.  No one was watching when he finally emerged after lunch.  This was the same caterpillar (“Big Guy”) who formed a chrysalis when no one was watching, too, so perhaps he’s shy!

Two days later it was Little Guy’s turn.  The morning that we could see his black and orange pattern we were set to leave for a day trip, so I prepared the kids that we would miss his emergence, too.  We were bustling around getting ready and I happened to peak in and could see a crack forming in the chrysalis!  I yelled to everyone (causing the dog to bark wildly) and all four of us watched in awe as he emerged.

“I love you!” whispered my ten-year-old daughter, as if to a newborn baby.

“This is the most exciting thing of my life!” exclaimed my six-year-old.

Watching the emergence was amazing, especially how the body of the caterpillar was plump and the wings appeared small and shriveled.  I had read that they need to pump blood into their wings, but hadn’t thought of where the blood would come from!  We watched the body grow smaller as the beautiful wings expanded.

We had enough time to take in every detail of these beautiful creatures.  We were reminded of things we’d learned during our nature study: we caught a few glimpses of the amazingly long proboscis, we noted the brightly colored surface of the wings when open, but the paler color of the underside when closed, we counted the four longer legs but looked closely for the two smaller legs near the mouth.  The awe and wonder of a plump striped caterpillar forming a jewel-like chrysalis that appears to be adorned with gold, only to emerge 10 days later as this lovely fluttering butterfly!

We released both of the butterflies on the same day that they emerged, back into the lovely wildflower field we had found them in as tiny caterpillars.  Off they fluttered as we said goodbye.  We all hoped they were the generation of Monarch butterflies that gets to go to Mexico for the winter!

My kids turned to me and said, “We’re going to do this again next year, right?”

Absolutely!