The first monarch a female just flew away, first flight it landed on my truck tire, I picked it up by letting it crawl on to my finger, and it flew the length of my back yard n disappeared somewhere there, the second monarch came out while we were filming the first one

They sure fill out fast, their wings are only 2/3 the length of the body, in ten fifteen minutes they are almost full size

The one I thought was gonna die, turned into a chrysalis, it's skin didn't completely fall off, hanging by a Small piece of green, I hope this one is ok

Two more will come out today sometime

Thanks Mike, three will come out today
Yesterday my customer had asked if she could bring her grandkids over to see butterflies come out, they got to see new butterfly dry out, told the young kids all I learned and knew about the monarchs and swallowtail, showed them the garden and my two bunnies, it was fun
Maybe one of the four kids will help butterflies too? Those swallowtail sure look cool

I think because of the rain today those three took longer to get ready to fly, I had them just inside the open garage door, three left, and five more coming soon

One of last five hung on a milkweed, I think it will die, it wasn't full sized and isn't shedding skin
Had one missing this morning, found it hanging on my kitchen wall about 4" off the floor! I guess I'll keep my eye on it lol

One nearly grown catapiller just laid over n died! The one that hung early looks dead, maybe a grub in them?

I guess Cardinals like monarch one ate my two catapillers and two chrysalis, dang it I thought Cardinals were neat

Hey Tach.20---enlighten me into how you can tell a male from a female Monarch. If it involves Birds and Bees stuff just PM me. Thanks.

You can tell when wings are open, or down, the rear wing on each side look at the black veins, black lines, the females are thicker, the male his veins are thinner and on each side in a vein you will see a black dot, it's a little wider than the vein but easy to see if wings are open and sitting still

I brought in a smallish catapiller two days ago, I saw a stink bug or some type of bill bug with a spike sticking into the catapiller, stupid ugly bug, I didn't see an injury, but catapiller was dead an hour later, I went out last night and cut a fresh weed, I spose that bug came in that way, dang there sure are a lot of bugs n birds that kill these awesome things