King of the Butterflies

The Monarch butterfly has been known as the 'King of the butterflies', and it's not too hard to see why. Unfortunately, their numbers have plummeted, and this year we were fortunate enough to find 26 eggs, not significantly different in size from a pin head.
Since mortality in the wild can reach the high 90% region, my family decided to raise them. We had often done this before, though we hadn't for a few years. It's fun, educational, and theoretically could give them a boost- we have lots of milkweed, but no butterflies.

Yesterday, 3 of them hatched out of their chrysalis. They were the first adult Monarchs that I have seen this year , and it was a beautiful sight.
I was able to document almost the entire life cycle in video, from the egg, to caterpillar, to spinning the support web for the chrysalis and attaching to it, to going into the chrysalis and then hatching. Very fascinating, and I want to re-film some of it.

Anyways, here are a few shots from yesterday; Enjoy!

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dvance/96912244​73/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dvance/96884189​09/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dvance/96914938​99/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dvance/96912406​13/

Wow!I have always wanted to do this! What a sweet thing to do as well. I certainly saw the decline in butterflies of all types here this year. Saw maybe three swallowtails, and pretty sure it was the same one three times

Very cool-been seeing a lot of monarchs lately(nothing like a few years ago) but haven't been able to find any eggs or caterpillars. Want to find one for my daughter to watch.

You did very well photographing these. Our local news station was unable to find any Monarch caterpillars to use in their broadcast this year.

Lovely shots.