Moving Day

There always comes the day for the Monarch caterpillars  to begin leaving the Milkweed nest. Yesterday was that day. Somewhat surprisingly, because the Beatles were the first and the Saints were the fattest, it was the opera singers, led by Maria, who left first, followed by Luciano. Last night we went out with flashlights to check on them, and found that Maria had already entered the J position, high on a goldenrod. Luciano was still in the preliminary upside-down plank pose  under a leaf of the hydrangea. He went J sometime in the night.  Here's Maria this morning.

Guides say the J pose lasts 12-16 hours, so we knew today would be the day of transformation, but we had our hands full with much other activity. Another 6-8 of the caterpillars (NOTE: we can count, but caterpillars change their mind a lot) appeared to be ready to find a leaf under which to transform.You think it might be easy to track a caterpillar, but it is not, especially when one is playing zone. But just as we were heading in out of the heat, we checked on Maria and she had broken out of the skin at the back and was transforming with shocking speed, throwing off her last molt with quick, almost violent twirls. In just a few moments, she had gone from the caterpillar above to the chrysalis below. 

Luciano was in a less exposed place, difficult to cover, so we set up the camera on a tripod and set the timer for a frame every 20 seconds. We did not know when he might transform. But it turned out to be within half an hour of setting up the camera. The resulting frames, again, one every 20 seconds,  capture the 30 minutes or so of his changes. 

As for the other thirteen, seven are still fattening up, or in Anthony's case, still growing up. Six have moved to leaves in other plants, three in hydrangeas, like John below,  and one in the phlox. Two are still unaccounted for. More on the rest of them tomorrow! 

Ok, late photo flash! With evening falling, we discovered that Enrico has also assumed the J position. Another chrysalis tomorrow morning!