Monarch Migration

The Farm has always supported butterflies by keeping butterfly preferred flowers in the gardens and in particular looking out for Monarchs by raising them from caterpillars when their numbers are low. 2019 was the best Summer for Monarchs in quite a few years so I decided to start listing results for on-going comparison of years. But first a few pics….

Hungry Caterpillars
Monarchs in Waiting
Chrysalis Near eClose
Newly Emerged
Nearly Ready To Go!
Healthy Male Monarch With Wings Still Drying

15 caterpillars total

2 accidental deaths

0 disease issues

0 unexplained death

7 healthy males

6 healthy females

87% survival rate

Which far surpasses the 0% observed surviving in the garden.

Chrysalis Accidents

2 fell – one was crushed while cleaning the cage as it wasn’t seen on the bottom after it had fallen. The other fell just after the chrysalis formed and it was still too wet to survive the fall. This was the last caterpillar raised (9/18/19) and it seemed to have a bad destiny from the start. It wanted to j on the test tube rack for holding the milkweed leaves, when relocated to the top then picked the zipper of the cage, etc.

2016 in Pictures

Gallery

Wet Snowstorm

Ozzie Sleeping on Washed Shetland Fleece

Jasper on Washed Shetland Fleece

Fuzzy First Day Found (~4 days old)

Fuzzy Taking a Bath

Fuzzy After Taking a Bath

Fuzzy After Taking a Bath

Fuzzy talking to Andrea

Soaking Wet Baby Robin Day of Fledging

Geese on Shed Roof

Twin Fawns in Buddy’s Pasture

Jasper Supervising Baby Chicks

Jasper Supervising Baby Chicks

Goldfinch Family Learning to Eat Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Sunflowers

Dominique Hen in Catnip

Coq Au Vin – Ameraucana Rooster (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

Blue Heron on Rowboat

Cardinal Flower

Monarch Butterfly

Great Spangled Fritillaria

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Hummingbird Moth on Lilac Monarda

Dragonfly at Pond

Ingrid and Starlight (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

Jessie, James and Rembaldi (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

TyDye in Deep Snow Path

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