I have enjoyed watching Monarch Butterflies since I was a wee brat. Literally all my life.
They were the beautiful jewels of summer when I was growing up on the Prairies of New Jersey. You never saw many of them, and when you did they were always special.
I did take some time to read up on them, and their life cycle is well known. The butterfly is one of a few stages. Egg, Caterpillar, Pupa, Butterfly.
I had a thing for growing flowers, specifically Zinnia. They would grow freely in our yard so it was a matter of tossing a few seeds and keeping the soil moist. You would be graced by a bloom in time.
The butterflies would eventually arrive from the South on their trip Northward. Have a meal at my Zinnia buffet, perhaps lay a few eggs elsewhere and disappear. There would be more coming from the North later on in the season, heading Southward.
When I moved to Florida, I found that there is a permanent population endemic here. People enjoyed seeing them, so they would plant things in their gardens to help them along.
I am, of course, one of those people.
Zinnia seeds in hand, along with the Bougainvillea that helped sell this house to us, I made sure that there were plenty of things here for the little visitors to have.
Bright idea! I would grow milkweed and watch them progress through their life cycles from egg through emergence from their pupa and fly off.
Except, there's a problem. Since Milkweed is not exactly plentiful in the curated gardens of South Florida, when they found it, the butterflies would lay eggs. Dozens of eggs. That meant dozens of caterpillars. Usually on one or two plants. Since they don't have much food, the ones that hatched first would eat the plant and the eggs of the others would not get a chance to either hatch or get any food.
In a week, I was left with toothpicks in the soil where once a planter box had knee high foliage.
I hatched a plan to build a cage around the planter box so that I would reserve a few plants and hopefully get some flowers and seeds.
That cut back the visits. The butterflies would bounce off the cage and fly off, frustrated.
Eventually the milkweed grew to touch the top of the cage and one enterprising Momma Monarch left an egg on the plant, before I could train the plant with some wire to bend it away from the protective cage.
The one egg hatched into a caterpillar, then ate away a plant all on its own. Formed a jade jewel of a chrysalis, and the butterfly eventually emerged.
That morning I saw her, found a stick and she climbed upon it. The cage was set aside and I put the stick in the croton growing in the front.
Excitedly, I got the camera out and snapped off a few pictures. Then a few more.
She did not like having her portrait taken. I think that is universal, my dog does not seem to care for it either.
Launching in air, at that point I thought I was done. Except when I looked at the photos, I saw one very strange picture. It was a Monarch butterfly Thorax and a bit of the wing along with the antennae.
I have a picture of the butterfly in flight. I never expected that.
So it does go to say that if you are annoying enough with a camera, even a paparazzi can get an interesting picture.
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