From Ugly Duckling to Swan

Woodrow and I recently attended the burrowing owl festival. This was the same festival that we attended last year and enjoyed. Unfortunately this year there was a huge downpour in the morning, and by the time that it let up enough for us to go, we found most of the booths had shutdown and we were left with this...

...mud and muck. But while we were there, we stopped by the butterfly house and took a quick trip through it. There were a number of beautiful butterflies.

This is the Florida state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing...


I think that this is an Orange-Barred Sulphur...



This looks to be the 'oft spoken of Monarch...


Another Orange-Barred...


I'm not sure whether or not this guy was alive...


This might be a Great Southern White, with his wings smudged from the rain...


This might be an American Painted Lady...


...and another Orange-Barred...

Before we left, we bought a couple of American Painted Lady caterpillars in cups to take home and "hatch" into butterflies. I know they don't really "hatch", but humor me. It's late and I'm too tired to be clever. This was my caterpillar Little Joanie. Unfortunately the other one didn't survive to metamorphoses.

It was amazing how quickly Little Joanie grew. You could almost watch her grow!


Within a week or so, she had attached herself to the top of the cup.


And by that evening, she was wrapped in a cocoon.


About a week or so after that, I opened the cup to this...


A Painted Lady butterfly.

I coaxed her out onto a leaf, and left her on my spider plant outside the porch.





I left it there for the night, and it was gone in the morning. Here is a little video...