Just 10 days ago I found this Monarch butterfly chrysalis hanging from a screen door on the front porch. I knew that is was a Monarch chrysalis (moths make cocoons) because just the day before I took this photo I had seen the caterpillar in its familiar striped suit hanging upside down from that same spot. Its head was slightly curled up as it waited for its skin to harden.
Nearby, some of its siblings or cousins were busily munching on the tropical milkweed, waiting for their own metamorphosis.
All of the information I found about Monarchs said that it would remain in chrysalis form for about two weeks, before emerging as a butterfly. Yet, only a week later I went to check on the chrysalis to find it open at the bottom and a new butterfly on the concrete floor below drying its wings. It fluttered to a nearby columbine leaf when I tried to manipulate it into a more picturesque position. You can see a tip of one wing (right) slightly curled from still being damp.
I am privileged to be able to witness this and the many other cycles occurring around me each day.
And now the cycle has turned to autumn. Garden production has slowed. Where I once was fretting about whether I'd get tired of watermelon and cantaloupe, I am now regretting that their season is almost at an end.
Such are the cycles of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment