The Great Escape

We had fourteen known caterpillars that made it to maturity and stepped off their Milkweeds to go out into the world and metamorphose. But as briefly described in the previous post, when then do, it's crazy. They start and stop, go up and down, change their mind, fuss over just the proper leaf, and otherwise disappear into underbrush with maddening frequency. 

By the end of Friday, we had located eight. We wanted to find as many as possible before they turned into chrysalises. The greater size and  bold stripes of the caterpillar are so much easier to see compared to the perfectly camouflaged dollop of green that is the chrysalis. But where the heck were the other six?

Saturday morning, Rick crawled on hands and knees looking for the last of the hanging J caterpillars, but initially found nothing. But when he stood up (okay to laugh), there were two more to be found in plain sight. One was on the sedum, along with a small frog, and one at eye level, uncamouflaged, unhidden, on wild aster at the entrance to the string of Butterfly Bushes that we call Butterfly alley. 

We know the one on the aster had been there all along, because within minutes it began its metamorphosis. 

Some Monarch lovers, for lots of good reasons, bring their chrysalises inside to shelter, because only a small percentage of Monarch eggs ever make it all the way to butterfly stage.  Stephanie and I try to respect the balances of nature, but it it still emotional when nature surprises you with its cunning. When the caterpillar that we named John, after the Beatle who definitely was not a Saint, metamorphosed, we had a movie camera running. Playing it back, we saw a tiny parasitic wasp that was WAITING on the caterpillar (see top right of first image)for the change. And as soon as the soft green skin of the chrysalis was exposed, it immediately moved to start laying eggs (bottom photo) before we had a chance to gently brush it away. 

We realized one thing about the garden: A garden is an unnatural thing. Our tight assemblages of plants loved by butterflies and all the other insects bring prey and predator together with a density rarely found naturally. But we want it to remain wild, and as much as possible observe and be part of nature rather than trying too much to distort or thwart it, The one concession we are trying is with a few very high risk choices caterpillars made, ones that placed themselves in very exposed or high traffic wasp areas. We are trying with three to cover them with mosquito netting during their delicate early days. The other seven chrysalises we are leaving to go as nature will let them. 

So after all the chasing and crawling and searching, we feel very good to have ten chrysalises found--the four opera singers, three Beatles and three Saints. Four remained tucked away, hopefully safe. Here are the chrysalises we named Luciano and Enrico, together after a rain in the hydrangea by the stream. We will keep you updated on all the others in the coming, fraught, ten days.

​PS The Long-Tailed Skipper 

Our Long-Tailed Skipper caterpillars, whom you met when just an egg, are growing away in their leafy houses (they are not also called leaf-rollers for nothing). We caught a glimpse of one the other night, when they open their "door."