JMC_5659monarchemerge1jsm
Chrysalis #1... I have never seen a chrysalis in 'action' (or is it 'inaction') before, and was guessing the butterfly would emerge the following day. Luckily, I happened to be hovering over our little front garden, with cameras in hand, when this butterfly emerged. The last time stamp on the image of the chrysalis was a minute before the time stamp of the first emerged butterfly, so this 'coming out' must have occurred within a couple minute span (I must have been looking at the other chrysalis that blossomed about an hour later), and missed the actual arrival. Happy to be this close with the timing though! The tough part about the location was that to get these pictures, I had to brush up to some garden cactus that contains oodles of very small needles (loupe needed to be seen), and spent some time with loupe and tweezers to extract them from my arms, but it was well worth it!!!
JMC_5659monarchemerge1jsm
Chrysalis #1... I have never seen a chrysalis in 'action' (or is it 'inaction') before, and was guessing the butterfly would emerge the following day. Luckily, I happened to be hovering over our little front garden, with cameras in hand, when this butterfly emerged. The last time stamp on the image of the chrysalis was a minute before the time stamp of the first emerged butterfly, so this 'coming out' must have occurred within a couple minute span (I must have been looking at the other chrysalis that blossomed about an hour later), and missed the actual arrival. Happy to be this close with the timing though! The tough part about the location was that to get these pictures, I had to brush up to some garden cactus that contains oodles of very small needles (loupe needed to be seen), and spent some time with loupe and tweezers to extract them from my arms, but it was well worth it!!!