Saturday, February 7, 2009

A Web Made for a Butterfly

I was going through my photos of the past summer and thought I'd share a magical moment. I had given the girls various colors of yarn to make a web that weaved in and out of the trees in our orchard. The web had been up for about a week and we were in the process of taking it down when the little ladies spotted a Red Spotted Purple caterpillar preparing to pupate:



It was dangling right in the center of the web:


We have a butterfly garden and have raised many caterpillars from their larval stage all the way to their adult stage, but I have never even seen a Red Spotted Purple caterpillar anywhere! It's so ironic that we have planted many plants for the purpose of spotting different caterpillars....but this little guy ends up making a chrysalis on a man-made piece of yarn! I apologize for the next picture, my camera was not cooperating but I still felt the need to show it. Can you make out the chrysalis?





We put it in a safe place and kept a good eye on it and about a week later this is what we had:




The wonders of nature never cease to amaze me!

4 comments:

Jana Nielson said...

This spring I want to buy a butterfly habitat so that we can "hatch" our own. I think it is amazing, and beautiful to watch life evolve.

Bobo Bun said...

Glad you found me, as I now have another lovely blog to look at. Will try the sugar house and pumpkin bird feeder with my girls, they'll love it.

Lisa

Leanne said...

What a stunning butterfly...the girls web sure did catch a natural beauty....I love that children get to watch such an amazing process unfold.

Kelly said...

Just love this butterfly web!
Kelly