1st Butterfly

 This morning I got to watch this one emerge.  She has been exercising her wings and letting them dry.  Because it is to rain tomorrow I won't be able to release her til hopefully Thursday so I made up some nectar to feed her and will see if I can get some fruit as well.  I have 2 turning dark so there will be more soon I hope.

It is a girl no dots on her bottom wing.  And of course curiosity from the Tom. He knows she is in the cage but he also knows he will get in trouble if he knocks the cage down.

Watching the Decorah Eagle Nest

 As you may know Mom and DM2 built a new nest, N3, and it is out of sight and no camera.  Well looks like we won't ever be able to watch them at N3.  See below from Rapture Resource Project.  I have missed them so much and wonder about all the antics and head bonkings and wingersizing we missed.

We're getting a lot of questions about watching the Decorah Eagles in the 2021/2022 season. John talked about this during our interview with Iowa Public TV last night and I wanted to share it with the wider world.

Are we going to be able to watch the Decorah Eagles next season? It's gotten very complicated. The N3 nest tree (as many of you know from Robin's Day Trips) is dead. Even if the landowner was excited about streaming, we can't climb the tree to install cameras and we don't know how well we can see them from adjacent trees, or how long those trees will remain healthy.

Bald eagles tend to abandon nest trees once the crown has died back and stopped producing leaves, so we don't even know whether Mom and DM2 will stay. They could return to the hatchery and N2B or build a new nest in another tree. Eagle researcher Mark Stahlmaster didn't count eagle nests as abandoned until they went five years without use, which gives us hope for N2B. Here's a video that gave several of you hope for a new nest at N1. Mom looks lovely and neither of the eagles seem ready to rent out N2B! https://youtu.be/GKGPrrRszOs.

So: we were working on ways to stream N3 until we learned that the nest tree was dead. This new wrinkle has caused us to rethink our plans. We'll continue to watch the hatchery in person and remotely, and hope to know a little more about Mom and DM2's plans by early September. We'll share our observations with you. You can help us by sharing your observations via youtube, explore, facebook, and our website as we watch and wait to see what they do!

Exciting Times

 So this just happened I watched it. Nature is amazing.  So excited to have all 7 getting ready to become Monarchs.  Stay tuned for more pictures.

Here We Go

 I watched this one crawl up to the top last night and never came down to eat.  This afternoon I watched it spin the silk button it hangs from.  So we are getting ready in about a week for the butterflies to start appearing.  They have all slowed down the eating today.  

#2:

And Then There Were 7

 I keep finding caterpillars every time I go get milkweed leaves. They are going through them quickly and boy do they poop a lot.  They should be ready to chrysallis any day now.  I hope they all make it to be butterflies.

Caterpillars

 Finally after 2 years of no Monarch caterpillars I found 2 yesterday while watering.  I quickly got their cage, put milkweed in and they are happily munching along.  I have a very large patch this year and was beginning to think I would not have any again but I saw a male a couple weeks ago so there must have been a female near by as well.

I am hoping they will both become butterflies, stay tune for progress.

I keep finding caterpillars and I now have 6 waiting to turn into beautiful Monarchs.