Monarch Time

We've had lots of monarch activity this summer. One day I watched a monarch lay several eggs. When I went back out to look at them later, most of them were already black. After doing some research, I concluded that they were all parasitized by a type of wasp. I squished them all to prevent being overrun by these tiny wasps and hoped the butterfly would come back. It did. This time I picked several leaves right after the eggs were laid. I brought 27 eggs in the house to take care of. 21 of them made it into their chrysalis. Today the first one of that batch eclosed. The other day I found 15 more tiny little caterpillars and 6 larger ones on the plants outside. I left them outside this time and am hoping they all make it.

Female laying an egg

The tiny white dot is the egg.

The rest of these are cell phone pictures. I haven't had a chance to download pictures from my good camera since we've been back from our softball "vacation".

It's kind of hard to believe that Danielle and I have been doing this for almost 11 years. We first started looking for monarch caterpillars and raising milkweed after she got painted lady butterflies for her 5th birthday. She will be 16 next week.

 

A Walk in the Park

I had a very nice evening at the park yesterday evening. I saw so many little things - katydids, a tiny praying mantis, caterpillars of all sorts, a walking stick (both the insect kind and the other kind) ;) , frogs, dragonflies, flowers. While I didn't actually see the mosquitoes, I do have proof they were there. Here are some of my pictures.



This was the tiniest tree frog I've ever seen. I stopped to look at a little yellow bug and happened to find this guy tucked in the leaves close to the ground.

My index finger for size reference.

Tiny inchworm (Maybe a 1/8" worm?) ;)

This guy was making a lot of noise.