Milkweed Adventures
Today, we went searching for monarch caterpillars. It’s been several years since we’ve been able to observe the metamorphosis, and I’ve had a hankering to do it again.
Unfortunately, we found not a single monarch caterpillar, though we visited three milkweed groves.
We did see some interesting things though. Apparently, milkweed is a popular hangout for young gray treefrogs, which we identified from photos at this site. Here are some of ours:
They blend in beautifully with the green of the leaf, and they look like they have jeweled seams on them.
Apparently, they make a racket. I listened to one at this site.
There were also red milkweed beetles, busy about their… activities.
The only caterpillar we actually caught was this guy, apparently a tussock moth caterpillar. We thought about bringing him home, but since they’re voracious eaters I’m glad we didn’t.
Older Daughter brought home a seed pod, and we took it apart and read about it in the Handbook of Nature Study. I never knew the milk in milkweed was actually rubber. I think my favorite new fact is that the seeds have life preservers so that they float if dropped in water, but of course there were lots of interesting bits of information in the Handbook.
Of course there were other bugs I didn’t photograph, a brown and orange moth, and a green caterpillar, as well as a trio of hummingbirds doing aerobatics. There were goldenrod with bulges in the stems that housed insect larvae, and a pair of handsome phoebes Eastern kingbirds hunting.
This is why I am both excited and despairing about nature study. I feel like we could return to the milkweed patch every week for a year and we’d see something new each time.
This is going to be a lifelong project.
Edited to add: I have a follow-up post on our experience after finding some monarch caterpillars here.
This post is submitted to the Outdoor Hour Blog Carnival at Handbook of Nature Study.
5 Comments
Amy @ Hope Is the Word
Do you know how much I love this? (And how envious I am of your opportunity to do this in the hottest part of summer?). Have you thought about submitting this to Barb’s Handbook of Nature Study monthly link-up/carnival? I know she’d love to read it and see your lovely pictures!
Janet
Thank you, Amy — that’s a great idea.
It was hot! You can tell we’re desperate for a caterpillar. :-)
Page Turner / Heather
We have some butterfly weed in our flower beds, and last year we found several caterpillars. Unfortunately, all of them were infected with fly larvae, which had disastrous (and disgusting) results.
Last Friday, however, I found another caterpillar and brought it inside with some butterfly weed, and yesterday it made it’s chrysalis!!! We are so excited, and only a little sad that we didn’t get to see it happen since we were at church.
I hope you’ll find a caterpillar eventually. It such an amazing aspect of God’s creation!
Janet
Yes! We’re definitely going to keep looking.
Infected with fly larvae. Uggh. I’m glad you’re having a better experience this year!
Mommytymestwo
I have four year old boy/girl twins and we have been watching the Metamorphosis of the Monarch since they were one, each summer. There was a lack of Monarch caterpillars in our area this year, but we found 40 Milkweed Tussock caterpillars and they are all doing fine! The magical wonder in young children regarding the wonderful world of insects has been a treasure to watch! They always have good questions, are eager to learn about new insects and are always having fun with caring for nature! We hope everyone is having a great time raising caterpillars and releasing Butterflies!