Helping Monarchs Part 3 - First Flight and Release

While it was exciting for me to watch a Monarch butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, the next thing I eagerly awaited was its first flight. (Kind of like your baby taking its first steps!)

When I left off with the story in Part 2, our butterfly was still not quite fully unfurled.  It hung from the empty chrysalis for awhile, and off and on would slowly flap its wings to get them straightened out.  

 Then it started to walk around on the underside of the screen.

I had attached a piece of white paper to the back of the screen in order to take better photos, and now I flipped that around so the butterfly could crawl where it wanted, which was up and over the edge to the top.

Walking on that slippery paper was a little tricky for it, but it walked across the paper, onto the screen again (on the top this time)... and to the edge.  She didn't seem to like the slippery edge of the screen too much either, as you can see in the video. However, now it was time for TAKE OFF!

This all took place in our sunroom.  

Her next short hop was from the bromeliad plant to the window.

The window was open below her, but the butterfly sat on the ledge for awhile.  I decided to take things into my own hands... literally.

The Monarch climbed quite willingly onto my hand.

And out to the great outdoors we went together.

This seemed like a good spot...

on a Zinnia in the midst of a butterfly wonderland!

Thankfully, it was a warm, sunny day with only a little breeze, perfect for a newly emerged butterfly.

She sat on that flower for quite awhile.  I kept checking on her, and hoping to get a video of her first outdoor flight.  Instead, I got this one of her defending her position on the Zinnia from this bee.

She flew away a few moments later, but I didn't catch her on video.  It seemed a bit late in the year for her to be starting out, but there was another Monarch in the garden the same day.

 That's the released Monarch on the left and another one (a male) on the right.  Here's a close-up of the male... you can tell it's a "he" because of the small, thickened spot on his vein.

This was happening on September 25th.  Three days later, I counted 5 Monarchs in my garden.  I managed to get 4 of them in one photo.

There are two Bumble Bees in there, too!

Here's my favorite shot from that day:

Maybe one of those was 'my' butterfly!

Still to come was the other butterfly I had rescued from the soon-to-be-mowed hayfield.

You saw it in the first photo in this post, when it was still a green chrysalis.  Now here it is (on September 30th) ready to emerge - alongside the empty shell of the butterfly from September 25th.   

I was not able to watch the second one emerge, but I did get to release it into the garden.  The weather was not so nice this time and it did not have any other 'friends' in the Zinnias.  I wished her "Godspeed" and said a little prayer that she would have a good trip when she flew south.

Here are links to my other recent butterfly posts, in case you missed any:

Butterfly Ballet
Helping Monarchs - Part 1
Helping Monarchs - Part 2 - Birth of a Butterfly!