Helping Monarchs - Part 2 - Birth of a Butterfly!

Hi everyone, sorry to have kept you waiting!  

At the end of my last post (click here if you haven't read Part 1), I told you to 'stay-tuned' and I would share my photos of a Monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  The reasons why it has taken me awhile are: 

1. SO many photos to choose from and edit
2. What was I going to say about this amazing event? 

After much pondering, I finally realized that I didn't really need to say anything about it - just show the photos!  So, I'm not going to write much, but I do have a kind of funny story to tell before I get to the pictures.  

The morning of the emergence, I took some photos of the chrysalis.  I could see the butterfly really clearly and I thought it would probably come out soon.  Then, I waited.  And waited.  Then, I decided to check the photos I had already taken.  (I can't see them too well on the camera display, so I was going to load them onto my laptop).  It would only take a minute.  So, when does this butterfly decide to start to emerge?  You guessed it!  While my camera was downloading photos.  I didn't want to lose any of the previous photos, so (slightly panicking), I stopped the download as fast as I could, unplugged my camera, and started shooting!  

Here is one before she started to eclose (the proper term for "an insect emerging from an eggshell or pupal case").  Does that seem like a strange word for it to you?  It did to me when I recently learned it.

 Now, here she comes!

9:06:03

9:06:21

9:06:38

9:06:41

9:06:50

9:06:55

9:07:10

9:07:29

9:07:54

9:12:59

I noted the times from my camera so you can see how quickly this took place.

At 9:08:29, while her wings were still not unfurled, I took a short video:

I think this blog post may have set a new record for the least amount of time that passed in the taking of the photos.  There was the one about the Heron vs. the Osprey (six minutes) and my quick encounter with a Wood Duck and her babies (three minutes), but this one (at least the emerging part) took only about one minute.

Part 3 will be coming up... 'stay-tuned' again for video of her first flight and then photos of her release.  (And yes, "It's A Girl")