OMG!!

Here's what I saw in the monarch ranch when I got up at 4:45 this morning.......9, count 'em, 9 chrysalis have turned black because there's a monarch butterfly in there ready to emerge!

And here are the 9 beautiful new monarch butterflies that greeted me when I got home from work this afternoon!

I will be using my last 9 monarch tags when I release these butterflies this afternoon, for a total of 50 monarch butterflies tagged and released this summer! This is a new personal best for me and more than doubles my totals from the previous 2 seasons of operating a monarch ranch. I'm already planning to purchase a larger enclosure and expanding my monarch ranching operations for next summer. 75 sounds like a really good number, don't you think? (tags can only be purchased in lots of 25)

Sadly, this concludes another season of monarch ranching. It will be strange to not have monarchs sitting on the kitchen counter anymore, since they've been taking up so much of my time at home for the past couple months. But, it gives me something to plan for and look forward to for next summer. I'm already collecting milkweed seeds from plants in my backyard to start new seedlings next spring and figuring out where and how to expand milkweed plantings to encourage and accomodate more monarch activity in the backyard.

I strongly encourage any of you who are interested to try monarch ranching. I think you'll find it a fun and rewarding activity for a minimal $$ investment. I'll even send you seeds if you want to try growing your own milkweed plants! "Try it, you'll like it!"

Monarch Milestone

Today marked a milestone in my monarch ranching experience -- 6 monarch butterflies hatched and released on the same day!!

Two were already hatched by 6 AM this morning when I left for work and the rest emerged during the morning. So they were really fluttery and anxious to fly by the time I got home early this afternoon. Since I don't tag them until I get outside in the backyard, I decided to take a chance and open the ranch to see if I could get photos of all 6 butterflies.

Not to worry.......I did manage to capture the escaped monarch behind my computer desk and he was released unharmed out in the backyard.

Today's butterflies increases the total of monarchs raised, tagged and released from this summer's monarch ranch to 37! Initial observations show that at least 4 more monarchs will emerge tomorrow. With the monarchs still to emerge in the ranch and including the 4 wild monarch butterflies I caught and tagged last week, I should be able to achieve my goal of tagging 50 monarch butterflies this year by Labor Day.

Let's Release Some Monarch Butterflies!

Quite a few monarch butterflies are starting to emerge in the monarch ranch. It's always cool to see the wing colors develop and know that a new butterfly will be born in a couple days.

This picture isn't very clear, but this is what the chrysalis looks like on the morning the butterfly will emerge -- dark and almost ready to pop. No surprises about what's going to happen today!

Last Thursday morning, 4 butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. This is what I saw when I got home from work that day. The monarch ranch is a very busy place these days.

Before they're ready to be released out into my backyard wildflower garden, the monarch butterflies spend the morning in the ranch drying out and stretching their wings. That's always my favorite part -- attaching the sticker tag to its wing and documenting another successful release of a monarch butterfly that I raised from a baby.

They always seem to be happy to be out in the sunlight and fresh air.

Sometimes they'll fly away immediately and other times they like to sit on the flowers and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Here's a little video I made on Thursday afternoon......please excuse my moment of ADHD in this video. It was the first Great Spangled Fritillary I've seen in the backyard this summer!