A Monarch Butterfly Visits the Garden

Why do you get up in the morning? For me, it doesn't get any better than this: during an early morning inspection of the garden I looked up as a shadow crossed overhead, and spotted a monarch butterfly. What a welcome sight; this hasn't been a good year for monarchs, she was the first one we've seen in our garden all year.

She flitted around several of the milkweed plants that my husband George planted to attract the monarchs. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars eat.

Finally, she found one to her liking and deposited an egg under a leaf.

If I hadn't taken a photograph of her leaving the egg, I don't think we would have found it, it was so well hidden.

We carefully inspected the other milkweed plants and found several more eggs. I wonder how many we missed!

The one high up in the milkweed plant (it's the yellow dot near the center of the fifth photo) must have been left a few days ago, because it already hatched, as did a second one George found on the same plant. The next photo with the head of a pin included shows the size of the egg and the two tiny caterpillars.

Have you seen any monarchs in your garden? Are you planting milkweed to attract the females and feed the caterpillars?

Click here to see the original post on my blog.

And click here to see more of my nature photographs on my website.