Monarch saga, and the Bad and the Beautiful....

The Monarch chrysalis I found hanging on the old apple tree.

 

The chrysalis darkened, and one could see the colours of the butterfly, shortly before it emerged.

 

The butterfly emerged, all crumpled, but slowly the wings expanded and smoothed out.

He hung out by his empty chrysalis, for some time, looking like a hanging leaf swaying in the breeze. No wonder they are hard to spot! 

He took to the air, circled the apple tree, then landed up in it, opening and closing his wings for a while, then sailed off over the milkweed patch. See the dark spots on the hind wings? That is a male. The female doesn't have the spots and has thicker wing veins.

Previously I've mentioned that we are having an influx of Lymantria dispar dispar, previously known as Gypsy Moth. This is a picture of a female with a large egg mass beneath her. 

This is a shot up into the old apple tree, and there are many moths and zillions of eggs. Next summer will be brutal, as the caterpillars will eat every green leaf, unless we get a long stretch of really cold weather to kill the eggs this winter.

Recently we spotted this pretty guy  on the side of a building. It is a Garden Tiger Moth. We have more often seen the furry caterpillars of this moth,  Woolly Bears.

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