Phenology Report: Monarchs: Part 7

[Note: This post will have an image I expect has “never before been seen” on the internet. I’m cool like that.]

That was fun. The caterpillar I captured has grown up, decided to self identify as a butterfly, and flown away. It’s probably on it’s way to Mexico where it’ll cavort with other young butterflies and drink margaritas on the beach. It’ll never think of poor left behind creaky old Curmudgeon who’s going to shovel snow all winter. Punk!

A heartfelt note: I’ve experienced something I tried to experience when I was a kid (maybe something like 9 years old?) and it was just as fun as if I was a kid (even better because I didn’t have to go to school… school sucks!). If you’re trapped in social media or fretting about politics or the world weighs on your shoulders… I heartily recommend sticking a bug in a jar and watching it. (I’m aware of the irony of blogging recommendations about avoiding social media. Life is a conundrum.)

If there’s something you wanted to do as a kid and it’s reasonable… do it. Especially if it’s cheap and simple. Go ahead and buy that Lego set, block out a Saturday morning to watch coyote cartoons and eat sugary cereal, get the big box of crayons, put a swing-set in your yard. Do it now. You’re gonna’ die one way or another.

Raise a butterfly while you can.

First a shout out to Mrs. Curmudgeon. I’d been checking the chrysalis daily but she texted me to remind me “the chrysalis is about to pop… keep an eye on it”.

I carefully moved the jar next to my computer. A couple hours later it was out and struggling in the jar. Lesson learned: butterflies emerge from a chrysalis without a sound.

I had this idea that it’s super important not to mess with a butterfly as it’s emerging from a chrysalis (same with baby chicks and eggshells). So I watched as it struggled to climb over one measly leaf to get toward the upper edge of the jar.

Meanwhile Mrs. Curmudgeon texted “feed it”. I’m a dutiful husband so I follow directions. I quickly mixed up some sugar water. I used a wood coffee stirrer with one drop of sugar water and held it to the butterfly. It extended a (frankly terrifying) coiled “proboscis” (I’m unsure of the vocabulary and it would take the fun out of it to look it up so just humor me if I’m wrong). It was like “fuck no… you’ve been stirring coffee with that”.

Also it was still doing an impressively bad job of climbing over the “leaf of impassibility”.

I wondered if it wanted to climb down? Maybe some sugar water there? So I poured a half shotglass of sugar water into the jar.

The critter was like “Holy shit! Flood waters are coming!” It made a sloppy but valiant effort to climb over the “leaf of impassibility” and dipped a (still bent) wing into the liquid.

Finally I was like “this thing is gonna’ fall over and drown in a quarter inch of liquid”. So I got a fresh wooden stir stick and held it out. He grabbed it like a drowning man and I gingerly lifted him out. I leaned it against a set of binoculars and a tape dispenser.His wings folded out better but then he moved around and knocked the stick over. Soon he was struggling on the table. Sheesh, how do these things survive in the wild? I let him get a grip again, lifted him up, and taped the stick to the binocs. That seemed to work.
Wind was buffeting him so I put up a box of ammo as a windbreak. How did he thank me? He took a shit on my desk! That brownish dot on the bottom of the image is genuine butterfly shit. Poor bastard had been holding it for weeks.As far as I know, there is no other place on the internet where there’s a photo of butterfly shit. See? Tune into my blog and you get content nobody else has! This is EXCLUSIVE!I’m sure, by now some of you have Googled “butterfly shit”. I don’t dare do it myself. If you’re looking at disgusting imagery of a cosplay/furry weirdo taking a dump… you brought that on yourself. I’m just assuming there is no “butterfly shit” on the web because I like to believe I live in a sane and reasonable world. I’m only putting it here because it’s in context dammit!

Mrs. Curmudgeon kept texting “feed it”. I tried again but the butterfly was “that’s yucky, fuck off”. Then it took two more dumps on my desk.

Thus I have acquired new knowledge. I present to you this new empirically deduced biological/phenological data that heretofore I did not know: A monarch butterfly needs three dumps before it can fly. I’m all about science y’all!

After a while it looked like it was ready to go. I took it outside, set it on the ground, and stood watch lest the cats decide to turn a moment of renewal into one of hating cats.

Trust me, no butterfly was ever more safely guarded than this one. If a cat ate the butterfly the cat was going in the woodchipper. The cats seemed to understand.

Mrs. Curmudgeon texted “did you put it on a flower”. Nope, I stuck it on a dandelion on a cement step. ‘Cause I’m a guy. Following instructions I put out a jar lid with the sugar. The butterfly was like “buzz off”.

I switched cameras to get one good photo. (My GoPro takes a better photo than my shitty phone.)

Then he was gone. Adios little buddy. Thanks for the visit from childhood.