My first monarch caterpillar, getting rather chubby eating up the milkweed I planted.
my first monarch!
Nice picture!
Awwww..... Isn't he cute!!! Congrats on your healthy little fella! May he be a beautiful butterfly to grace your yard in a few weeks! :-)
Yayyyy Kim!! What a nice healthy cat you have there! Congrats!!!
Warning.... ya could get hooked!!
:-Deb
Congrats Blue! He's a fatty :>)
Wonderful! My milkweed is just now sprouting up after the winter... monarchs will have to be patient, LOL. I think my cats all got munched last year, so this year maybe I'll throw some bird netting over the milkweed and the fennel (guess that won't help with wasps though), or even take a few out of the garden to raise.
I didn't know he'd eat the bloom part as shown in your pic.
He's been eating blooms and leaves, hungry little fella. I started out with three, I guess the other two ended up being someone's dinner. I have a lot of birds and such in my yard as well.
:) Kim
Maybe he's hiding. If a bird tried to eat him, they'll spit him out and hopefully won't eat another. His colorful showing tells them he doesn't taste good thanks to the milkweed!
They love the flowers!
Critter.....if you put in some plant stakes that are a little higher than the plant, when the cats are at the top, and then add the netting, the wasps can't get to them. Make sure you close it around the bottom to keep those #%&^* spiders out.
Look close around the area Kim, you others may have already formed their chrystalis. They are a beautiful green and may be on another plant that is higher near by.
Great picture!!
flygirl, what kind of netting are you using that wasps can't get through? I've got bird netting (the kind you use to cover fruit trees and berry patches).... maybe I should get some tulle?
I've got tons of spiders in my garden also, so that might be another reason my cats didn't last long.
Wonderful! Glad at least one survived. Wasps and spiders, lots of other predators hang around looking.
I have used the tulle, I found some really cheap at WalMart. Then, I decided to build a cage to keep them even safer. I just buy some big pots, milkweed mostly, and swap them out in the cage as they get eaten. It works pretty well. I keep the cage in my garage with flourescents above that help keep them green longer.
The poor cats have so many predators.....ants are going to be the really hard ones to keep out.
Well, the tachinid fly is hard to keep out also. I lost two Monarch cats that had those when pupating. Oh, sorry, blue_eyes...I just realized that this is your happy thread!
ants also! ack, my monarch cats may just be doomed... I will cage a few so the neighbor kids and I can enjoy watching them.... for the rest, "survival of the fittest" may just have to be the rule of the day out in my garden.
blue_eyes, I keep going back to the top of the thread to click on your photo again... what a lovely, happy caterpillar!
I do too. Looks like that picture belongs in a school science book.
Well, I looked out there this afternoon and I can't find him. I wonder what happened?
Kim
Kim, I'm sure he's still there somewhere. I couldn't find mine either and was just as worried as you. (This is my first time 5/6/07 with a monarch cat too) I saw him a few days later early, around 8:00 am, on another milkweed plant. The one I have is hard to see since he eats upside down under the leaves. I don't think there's more than one. Have you only seen one too?
Kim~ Here's hoping the cats all went to pupate safely. The one in your good pic looked ready. Look for some shiny green jewel-like ornaments with a few gold specks, hanging on eaves and plants within about a 20 ft radius.
Hope that's it!
Great picture! Here's my one and only lil muncher I have left. It finished off all the foliage on this stem,headed down to get to another stem.
P
Nice shot Peggy! He's just about ready to close in to a pretty jewel. Glad ya have a cam that takes clear pics too!
Well.... looked high and low and can't find a one. Oh well, they were pretty while they lasted. Hopefully more will come.
Kim
Don't give up, Kim. That's what I thought to. Went out there this am about 7:30 and found three in that same bed of milkweed!
blue, sometimes they crawl off the plant to change instars, maybe they'll come back, hope so.
Kim - If the butterflies find your yard and start showing up every now and again .... trust me .... you WILL find cats eventually. Just keep your eyes peeled. I tie little pieces of yard around branches that butterflies lay eggs on in my yard, that way I can find them again later to check their progress. But usually I do handraise them after they become baby cats. Hang in there, you will find some!
I go out almost daily to search for cats but I'm not very good at finding them.All the flowers were eaten of my bristly locust and just noticed yesterday,all the buds on the (black/honey don't know which)locust had been eaten.
P