Monarch Ranch Update

Three monarch butterflies hatched in the monarch ranch this morning. This brings my current total to 25 (finally!)
It's been a disappointing season for my monarch ranch. Last year by this time, I had released my last monarch, with a total of 50 tagged. This year it's taken me since July 26th to reach a total of 25.

The biggest thing I'm seeing this year is that fully one-third of all the caterpillars I've brought in from outside have been victims of a parasite. Some of them have died before they even have the chance to turn into a chrysalis and at least 6 have died in the chrysalis. I'm not even seeing that many monarch butterflies in the wild so that meant I had a tough time even finding eggs on the milkweed leaves in my yard this year.

I'm not sure whether other people are experiencing the same problems with monarchs or not. I've heard from some other blogger friends that they aren't seeing the numbers of butterflies (of any species) like they have in previous years, so I'm wondering whether this is a nationwide problem and what are the influencing factors: climate change, drought, pesticide use, habitat loss, or a combination of all those? If any of you hear or see anything about this, please let me know. Thanks

Butterflies

Ruthie's 2011 Monarch Ranch officially opened this afternoon! After last year's successful monarch ranch, I'm hoping to double my monarchs raised, tagged and released from 50 to 100! To facilitate that, I recently purchased a larger monarch caterpillar enclosure (on the left). So now the smaller one with the pink lid will be my monarch nursery (already containing the 7 leaves with eggs and 2 baby caterpillars that I found earlier this afternoon).
I also purchased a small, collapsible "Port-A-Bug" carrier for collecting the monarch caterpillars and eggs in the backyard, and a large, collapsible mesh butterfly house for when the monarch butterflies hatch and need space to spread their wings before release outdoors. Good thing I have a large kitchen counter!

Here are the 2 little caterpillars I was lucky to find today -- this one is newly hatched! I was lucky to spot this tiny critter. This isn't a very clear picture, but the orange circle shows where the caterpillar is -- the black spot is its head.

Here's a little bit larger (first instar) caterpillar. I think the dark spot on its middle might be part of a shed skin.

I went out to the wildflower garden in the backyard to see if I could get some photos of monarch butterflies -- I'm just starting to see them more frequently in the backyard. There are thousands of beautiful flowers blooming right now in the backyard and the majority of them are purple coneflowers. The fragrance is wonderful and it's a magnet for butterflies and bees.

I stood at the edge of the flowers waiting for some cooperative butterflies to land on the flowers, but was momentarily distracted when this little female hummingbird landed on a branch just above me. Hello lovely hummer!

I was thrilled to see this beautiful Tiger Swallowtail fly into the garden. Wow! This one must have been newly hatched because its wings were in good shape and colors were very brilliant.

Still no monarchs checking out the flowers, but this handsome Red Admiral flew in to sip some nectar.

And there were plenty of honeybees buzzing around too.

There are so many flowers out here that every insect should be able to find its own, but that didn't stop this honeybee from attempting to move in on a Red Admiral. (In case you're wondering, the Red Admiral chased that little bee away!)

Walking around the outside edge of the garden, I also spotted these 2 spiders on a small web woven between 2 Queen Anne's Lace stalks. I could exactly figure out what was going on here (it's either spider sex or one of the spiders is dead and becoming a meal for the other spider)

(you can click on this photo to enlarge it and see what you can figure out!)

That's all for now. I'll be sharing monarch ranch updates as they become available.

OMG!!

Here's what I saw in the monarch ranch when I got up at 4:45 this morning.......9, count 'em, 9 chrysalis have turned black because there's a monarch butterfly in there ready to emerge!

And here are the 9 beautiful new monarch butterflies that greeted me when I got home from work this afternoon!

I will be using my last 9 monarch tags when I release these butterflies this afternoon, for a total of 50 monarch butterflies tagged and released this summer! This is a new personal best for me and more than doubles my totals from the previous 2 seasons of operating a monarch ranch. I'm already planning to purchase a larger enclosure and expanding my monarch ranching operations for next summer. 75 sounds like a really good number, don't you think? (tags can only be purchased in lots of 25)

Sadly, this concludes another season of monarch ranching. It will be strange to not have monarchs sitting on the kitchen counter anymore, since they've been taking up so much of my time at home for the past couple months. But, it gives me something to plan for and look forward to for next summer. I'm already collecting milkweed seeds from plants in my backyard to start new seedlings next spring and figuring out where and how to expand milkweed plantings to encourage and accomodate more monarch activity in the backyard.

I strongly encourage any of you who are interested to try monarch ranching. I think you'll find it a fun and rewarding activity for a minimal $$ investment. I'll even send you seeds if you want to try growing your own milkweed plants! "Try it, you'll like it!"

Monarch Milestone

Today marked a milestone in my monarch ranching experience -- 6 monarch butterflies hatched and released on the same day!!

Two were already hatched by 6 AM this morning when I left for work and the rest emerged during the morning. So they were really fluttery and anxious to fly by the time I got home early this afternoon. Since I don't tag them until I get outside in the backyard, I decided to take a chance and open the ranch to see if I could get photos of all 6 butterflies.

Not to worry.......I did manage to capture the escaped monarch behind my computer desk and he was released unharmed out in the backyard.

Today's butterflies increases the total of monarchs raised, tagged and released from this summer's monarch ranch to 37! Initial observations show that at least 4 more monarchs will emerge tomorrow. With the monarchs still to emerge in the ranch and including the 4 wild monarch butterflies I caught and tagged last week, I should be able to achieve my goal of tagging 50 monarch butterflies this year by Labor Day.

Let's Release Some Monarch Butterflies!

Quite a few monarch butterflies are starting to emerge in the monarch ranch. It's always cool to see the wing colors develop and know that a new butterfly will be born in a couple days.

This picture isn't very clear, but this is what the chrysalis looks like on the morning the butterfly will emerge -- dark and almost ready to pop. No surprises about what's going to happen today!

Last Thursday morning, 4 butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. This is what I saw when I got home from work that day. The monarch ranch is a very busy place these days.

Before they're ready to be released out into my backyard wildflower garden, the monarch butterflies spend the morning in the ranch drying out and stretching their wings. That's always my favorite part -- attaching the sticker tag to its wing and documenting another successful release of a monarch butterfly that I raised from a baby.

They always seem to be happy to be out in the sunlight and fresh air.

Sometimes they'll fly away immediately and other times they like to sit on the flowers and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Here's a little video I made on Thursday afternoon......please excuse my moment of ADHD in this video. It was the first Great Spangled Fritillary I've seen in the backyard this summer!

Hope you're not tired of monarchs yet!

I pulled a few weeds in the garden yesterday afternoon and threw them into the wheelbarrow for Mr. Johnson to dispose of . After dumping the weeds, he came into the house and asked me whether I had noticed the monarch chrysalis on the wheelbarrow. Sadly, I hadn't noticed it at all.

The wheelbarrow always sits in the same spot in the backyard next to the compost box. On top of the compost box in a long flower box, I'm growing some more milkweed plants (sometimes known as butterfly weed [Asclepia tuberosa]) from seed. These little seedlings are only a few inches tall, but they're very attractive to the monarch caterpillars. I bet the chrysalis on this wheelbarrow is from one of those caterpillars that was snacking on those butterfly weed seedlings earlier this week.

After taking this photograph, I removed the chrysalis from the wheelbarrow and placed it in monarch ranch along with the 17 other chrysalis still waiting to hatch into monarch butterflies.

Another milkweed plant in my yard that's receiving lots of attention from monarch caterpillars this summer is this Swamp White Milkweed. I planted it last summer and was happy to see that it made it through the winter and has developed into a huge, beautiful plant this summer. It has been blooming for several weeks now and has even developed some seed pods that I will save and try to grow more plants from next spring.

I'm amazed at how much the monarch caterpillars love this plant! It's not unusual for me to find at least 5-6 caterpillars on it every day. I collected 5 for the monarch ranch earlier this afternoon and then found these 2 additional ones a couple hours later.

I think there are at least 16 caterpillars of all sizes crawling around in the monarch ranch right now. At this rate, I shouldn't have any problem achieving my goal of raising, tagging and releasing 50 monarch butterflies in my backyard this summer.

Monarch Ranch Update

Things are going well in my monarch ranch. Lots of hungry caterpillars are feasting on all the milkweed leaves I can harvest. I'm guessing that maybe half of the caterpillars I raised from eggs have survived. If I find any wild caterpillars when I'm out harvesting milkweed leaves for food, I round them up for the ranch too (found 2 more just this afternoon!) It's really cool to see all of them crawling around and boy, are they ever hungry! When I put my ear down close to the lid, I can actually hear them munching away on these leaves......it's pretty neat!

One monarch butterfly hatched last week -- it was a male. Here are the other chrysalis that have been created on the lid of my monarch ranch. There are 2 additional new chrysalis since yesterday and 6 large caterpillars clinging to the roof that will probably turn into chrysalis sometime in the next 24 hours.

The other positive thing that happened today is that my monarch butterfly tags (50!!) arrived in today's mail. Now all butterflies that hatch from my ranch will be tagged before being released into the wild for their fall migration journey to Mexico.

Are you interested in monarch tagging? It's not necessary to grow your own butterflies from caterpillars. Anyone can tag and release monarch butterflies. Please click on this Monarch Watch link to learn more and to order your own tags. It's a really enjoyable project, gets you outside in beautiful late summer weather, helps you learn more about monarch butterflies and the habitats they prefer, plus it's a fabulous activity to share with your kids or grandkids!

Monarch Ranch Update

First monarch chrysalis was formed this morning!

There are also 4 teeny, tiny just-hatched caterpillars crawling around on their own milkweed leaf in the ranch.

Monarch Ranch 2010

It's official! Ruthie's 2010 Monarch Ranch officially opened this evening! As I was mowing the lawn yesterday afternoon. I noticed an abundance of monarch butterflies flitting around the yard and hanging on the underside of milkweed leaves appearing to lay eggs. So tonight when we got home from our after-supper walk with Sophie, I checked a few plants in the front yard to see whether I could find any caterpillars or eggs to stock the ranch.

I found these 2 already hatched caterpillars. I'm betting the big one will probably go into chrysalis stage sometime this weekend.
I also found 12 caterpillar eggs! I like raising the caterpillars from eggs. It takes a little big longer, but I have much more success with raising them to butterflies because there's no chance of any of the caterpillars being parasitized by wasps or flies when they grow up inside my house. If you're wondering exactly what I'm doing with these eggs, it's a moistened washcloth in a pie plate. I just cut off a small portion of the leaf where the egg is laid. The washcloth will keep the leaf moist and also from curling up. Plus, it's much easier to monitor how close the eggs are to hatching when they're visible like this. Once the tiny caterpillar hatches, I just put it (and the little leaf fragment) on a fresh milkweed leaf and the caterpillar will be ready to start eating and growing.

This last picture has nothing to do with the monarch ranch, but when I was editing the photos I found this one on the card in my camera that I had taken a few weeks ago. It's Mrs. Bluebird peeking out of the door of her house. Isn't she cute? Four bluebird babies were successfully fledged from this house.

Beautiful Monarch

This is the second-to-the-last monarch butterfly that hatched this morning in my ranch. I tagged and released her this afternoon, but she was kind enough to pose for this lovely photo before flying away.

I have one more monarch that will hatch tomorrow and that will be the conclusion of a super successful season for my monarch ranch -- a grand total of 23 monarch butterflies raised, tagged and released in my backyard to begin their long journey to Mexico.

I will probably shed a few tears as I send the final butterfly on its way......it will be hard saying goodbye to the last of my "monarch children" and facing the fact that the final days of summer 2009 have arrived.

A Big Day at the Monarch Ranch!!

When I checked the monarch ranch before going to work this morning, it looked like I would have 5 new monarch butterflies emerging today. As of noontime, I have 3 new butterflies and as you can see by the 2 chrysalis in the middle of the picture, it looks like the last 2 will emerge by the time I'm done mowing the lawn later this afternoon.

If I can get all 5 to pose for a picture, I will post it later today.

UPDATED AT 8:34 PM -- Here's the photo of all 5 monarch butterflies. Aren't they beautiful? There were 3 males and 2 females and I tagged and released them at 7:oo PM.

Ready to Tag a Monarch Butterfly?

This was a neat sight recently in my monarch ranch--the beginning of the cycle (caterpillar in the "J" position before turning into a chrysalis) and the completion of the cycle (monarch butterfly ready to hatch from the chrysalis). Isn't it amazing the butterfly can come out of that little chrysalis?

Here's another picture of a monarch shortly after emerging. They will hang from the empty chrysalis shell for quite a while as they dry out and pump fluids into their wings and gain strength.

And here's the monarch we're going to tag and release today. As I was reaching into the ranch to retrieve her, she fluttered down to the bottom and sat there for a short while. This was good because I was able to see very easily that she is a female.

Here's the tagging kit I purchased from Monarch Watch (cost = $15). It consists of 25 tags and a tracking sheet for recording the butterflies you tag this season. You record the tag number, date it was tagged, male or female, reared or wild, and the city, state and zip code where the butterfly was tagged. Unused tags and the completed data sheet must be returned to the Monarch Watch folks at the University of Kansas by December 1st.All of the monarchs that I tag from the ranch are recorded as reared. If I have any tags left over and capture some butterflies in the backyard for tagging, they are recorded as wild.

The tags are really small and super sticky. I shouldn't have cut my fingernails so short the other day because it's nice to have a little bit of nail to stick them on to hold -- otherwise they have a tendency to get stuck to my finger and that's not good!

Here are the instructions and illustrations showing exactly where to place the tag on the monarch's wing.

And here's what we're looking for on the "real" monarch.

As you can see from the above photo, she didn't like me holding just her wings--the legs are frantically scrambling for something to hold on to. So when I hold and tag them, I usually try to hold them so they can grab on to one of my fingers during the process. That seems to calm them down a little bit too and they're easier to hold then.

Here she is now with her tag stuck on. It's upside down, but I figured that really doesn't matter--you can still read the numbers, right?

After I finish tagging a butterfly, I take it out to the wildflower garden in my backyard and release them in a sheltered area on some of the flowers. That way they will have easy access to nectar right away too. Isn't she a beautiful sight?

They don't hang around very long and I've never spotted a butterfly with a tag on any subsequent days after releasing them in the backyard. I guess they instinctively know what they're supposed to do with their life.

So there you have it -- how to tag a monarch butterfly. Pretty simple actually. If you think you want to try it yourself, Monarch Watch has a beginner's kit that contains only 5 tags. You don't have to raise the monarchs from caterpillars either.......if you have a butterfly net and catch a monarch in your backyard, you can tag that one as a "wild" monarch.

This is my third year of monarch tagging and I've always purchased the set of 25 tags but never used them all. However, I'm optimistic that 2009 will be the year that I actually get to use all 25 tags.....especially judging by the looks of things in my monarch ranch!

This afternoon, right before supper, I had the rare opportunity to watch 2 caterpillars complete the process of transforming from a caterpillar to a chrysalis. It was the coolest thing ever! Their striped outside skin actually splits and the light green chrysalis emerges from what would have been the inside of the caterpillar. Needless to say, the supper preparations were a little bit delayed while I watched this miracle on my kitchen counter!

Let's Talk About Monarch Caterpillars

My next couple of posts are going to be devoted solely to talking about monarchs, so hopefully these will answer any questions you might have in case you're thinking about raising monarchs for yourself.

By now, you've probably heard or read the news that the monarch numbers (and butterflies in general) are all down this summer--perhaps due to the chillier and wetter than usual weather many of us have been experiencing this summer.

I've been finding quite a few monarch caterpillars in the backyard this week and here's a look at my re-populated monarch ranch.

Here are 4 large caterpillars I found on 2 plants the other night.

Monarch ranching is a really fun project that you might want to pursue with your kids or grandkids (or even on your own as I do!). So let's say you want to start a ranch, let me share some tips with you for going out and finding some caterpillars yourself.

First of all, you've got to find some Common Milkweed--the caterpillar's favorite food source. Hopefully you'll have some of this growing in your backyard or somewhere nearby. (And of course, you don't want to pick any that's been sprayed with chemicals.) The best thing to look for is a leaf that's been munched on. If you're lucky, the caterpillar will still be there and if you're really lucky, the caterpillar will be on top of the leaf!

Another clue to look for is poop (frass) on the leaves below where a caterpillar might be. The bigger the frass, the bigger the caterpillar you'll find.

Here's a lucky find--3 caterpillars on one plant, but notice that 2 are hiding underneath the leaves.

If you do find some caterpillars to populate your ranch, remember that you'll have to continue feeding them. I usually pick several leaves while I'm out there and store them in a baggie in the fridge. Once the caterpillars get bigger, they're eating machines, so you have to make sure you've got enough food to keep them fed until they turn into a chrysalis.

And speaking of chrysalis, take a look at what I also found yesterday........

A monarch chrysalis in the wild!! In all of my 50 years on this earth, it's the first time I've ever seen one! I was trimming back this huge milkweed patch next to the driveway because it had gotten too overgrown and was obstructing our view when backing out. The breeze just happened to blow this leaf back and I spotted the chrysalis. Thank goodness I didn't cut this stalk off before I saw the chrysalis.

Here's what it looked like when the leaf was just hanging--what amazing camouflage!

So I decided to remove this chrysalis from the leaf and add it to my ranch to see if it would hatch. Did you know you could do that? Let me show you how I did it. And before I go any further, I should tell you that I learned this from Dave, my monarch monitoring/bluebirding/master naturalist mentor.

Because this leaf would die before the butterfly hatched and the chrysalis has to hang in order for the butterfly to develop properly, I had to get it off the leaf.

See that little black "stem" at the top of the chrysalis? It's very stiff and hard, so this is what I'm going to attach a hanging thread to. That will allow me to tie the chrysalis to the roof of my monarch ranch. I put a needle at each end of the thread to make it easier to work with and just tied a good, tight square knot around the black stem.

Before the caterpillar turns into the chrysalis, it attaches itself to the underside of where the chrysalis will hang with a strong patch of silk. My next step was to carefully remove this silk patch from the leaf, so I pulled the handy-dandy Leatherman Micra from my pocket (you carry one of these with you at all times, right?) and gently loosened the silk patch from the leaf.

Once it's loosened, the entire patch was easily removed from the leaf.

Ta-Da!!! A monarch chrysalis ready to be attached to the ceiling of my monarch ranch.

In previous years, I've collected mostly eggs and raised them into caterpillars. This is the first year when the majority of my monarch butterflies will be hatched from larger caterpillars found in the backyard. There is a little bit more risk in hatching monarchs this way, mainly due to the chance of parasitic wasps or flies laying their eggs in the larva. There is no visible evidence when this occurs, but usually what happens is the butterfly is unable to develop due to the parasitic wasp or fly which develops instead inside the chrysalis. I've only had it happen a couple of times, but it's quite disappointing and something that you want to be aware of in case it happens in your monarch ranch.

Before I finish, here is an excellent website (just click on the link) if you're looking for more information on monarchs: Monarch Watch. I also really like "The Butterfly Book" by Don & Lillian Stokes as a reference guide. And I would be more than happy to try and answer any questions you have also. You can leave a comment or feel free to e-mail me (rjknits at msn dot com).

I hope you enjoyed learning more about collecting monarch caterpillars. Next time, I'm going to show you how to tag the monarch butterflies that you've raised in your ranch.