It’s baby time again in the butterfly nursery at our house! In a June blog post I told you about the thrilling visit by a female monarch to our garden, and showed you photos of her laying an egg on our milkweed.
Monarch butterfly depositing an egg on milkweed
The first monarch emerged this weekend!
This is a closeup of him hanging onto the chrysalis that he emerged from. 
We let him rest overnight because the weather was cold and windy. Sunday brought a bit of sun, so we let him go.
His empty chrysalis is on the left. His sister is ready to emerge – we could tell because her chrysalis became transparent and we could see the pattern of her wings through it.
She emerged the next day. Here’s a photo of her from the front.
We raised and released three monarchs – two male and one female. Hopefully she’ll return to our garden to to lay more eggs, or if you’ve planted milkweed maybe she’ll find her way to your garden!
I made a poster and card of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly.
Garden Delights Arts & Crafts blog 