I walk my garden daily, more times than not, multiple times a day.
When you plant a butterfly garden your eyes become trained on what to look for – eggs, caterpillars, chrysalis, butterflies – all the stages of life.
Lately I have found a few newly emerged monarch butterflies in the garden, a great surprise, as I never saw the chrysalis. The last few have been on the underside of the giant milkweed leaves, the monarchs host plant.
Today, I spotted this beauty still drying its leaves.
Another lifecycle has begun. I have begun to spot many monarch caterpillars again. The clues they give make it easy to spot them, such as their frass left on leaves. The size of the frass also lets you know how big the caterpillar may be.
