I've been at the Croquet Club all day because we had a national coach here to give us some, well, as you might expect, coaching. After it was all over I was standing by a Swan Plant which is the food plant of the caterpillar of the Monarch Butterfly. As I stood looking at the swelling larvae on the plant I realised that there was a recently pupated butterfly at my feet warming itself in the sun to dry out its wings. Despite the sun the wind today has been very cold and so I allowed the butterfly to crawl onto my hand with a view to moving it into a more sheltered sunny spot and, of course, with a view to photographing it. The main problem I then had was that it adopted me and I could not get it to stop clinging on (which feels strangely odd, I have to say) so that I could put it down in its new sunning spot.
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What a lovely sunny pair of images!
ReplyDeleteDid it open its wings out completely?
They hadn't dried out completely when I left it basking in the sun.
DeleteYes. The next day when the sun came out it flew off happy as a .... butterfly.
DeletePS it's a male.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough Katherine if I'd stopped to think about its sex I'd have known because it has the scent pouches on its wings. I pointed that out in my blog post Monarch Butterfly back in 2008.
DeleteAmazing...how well organised nature is, it can't be random, surely.
ReplyDeleteSP
Oh...BIG topic that one SP!
DeleteWhat a beauty.
ReplyDeleteYes, they really are beautiful creatures.
DeleteThe close up shots are superb. The butterfly must have been very trusting during the metamorphosis, it is very hard to hold one.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think he was just 'sleepy' rather than trusting and hadn't quite worked out what was what. I don't see them alight very often for long if it's sunny but I've seen them land in the oddest of places including bright clothing and heads.
DeleteHow unique to catch one just at that moment! We don't have the Monarch butterfly here but I recently saw a fascinating documentary about their migrations in America. Apparently it takes them three generations to fly from Mexico up to Canada. But there the fourth generation is born to be more hardy and live longer and manage to fly all the way back to the same place in the south; where it all starts over again.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was up to 5 generations but whichever it really is fascinating. I've done a number of posts on them over the years. The New Zealand ones tend to be a non-migratory resident population.
DeleteDid you se my post about the one we saved, I was so worried it wouldn't make it. I love butterflies!
ReplyDeleteYes I did Cat. I love them too. It comes from being Scriptor's brother!
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