Babs Takes Off!

Please follow the progress of my dear Monarch friend, Ms. Babbles (Babs for short). The first image is of her in her chrysalis--bright green with the "golden zipper."











The next picture is of the final transformation of the chrysalis before she busts out...it turns completely black. Really the chrysalis is translucent and is showing the black outlines of her wing patterns and body. You can see the mosaic of the orange color patterns on her wings. As I watched this transformation (the turning black part) it was as if the last stage was the melting away of any film of color on the chrysalis. There was actually liquid that formed in the chrysalis--evidence of that liquid appreared on the bottom of the jar when she broke out of the chrysalis. I was on my way to Council Grove Lake to kayak when she busted out of the bottom/front shell of the chrysalis. Maris and I pulled over to the side of the road and took pictures.

You can see in the next picture that her wings are curled and kind of connected together still. She just hung onto the chrysalis shell and tried to get her footing. Within about 30 minutes her wings were straightened out, but they were still wet. Maris and I tried to find some flowers with nectar so that she could have food available immediately. She did not seem interested in food--she was all about drying those wings out.

She was beautiful! Once we got to the cabin, Maris and I spent about an hour just looking at her--all of her intricacies. An amazing creature! She looked dry from our vantage point, but every so often and tiny drop of clear water would fall from the tip of her wings. We ended up kayaking for about an hour and returning to find her fluttering about the jar.

There was a very difficult decision to make---we were so hopeful to watch her fly off. What a proud moment that would have been, but here was the dilemma: do I keep her until she is ready to fly and let her go back at my house OR do I let her free in the most beautiful wildflower patch imaginable (for October in Kansas)? The final picture is one of the wild flowers where I let her come to rest on a sweet white cosmos flower. I am confident she used her wings to fly.

I said my goodbyes to Babs. What a beautiful creature!


---BABS---