It's been a cold rainy October. Last Sunday, as we were getting our bikes out to go for a ride, we saw this butterfly near the woodpile, struggling along. He was pretty beat up. Since it was chilly, I moved him into the sun thinking he just needed to warm up a bit, then he'd fly off again. When my husband saw it, he ran back into the house to make some sugar water, thinking it needed sustenance to make the trip to Mexico ... He put out a dish of sugar water for it, and we went on our bike ride (with winter hats and mittens).
When we got back 2 hours later, the little butterfly seemed to be doing better. With a cold night ahead, we brought him into the house, expecting to provide palliative care until he died. So we set up a habitat for him, a box with an open top so he could fly if he wanted to do so. He no longer seems able to fly ...
1 week later, he's still with us, sipping sugar water, crawling on the leaves, crawling on our fingers. Content--or wondering why on earth he's still alive, when a bird should have made a meal of him days ago. CL was explaining to Oliver that the butterfly drinks up the sugar water with his proboscis. So I named him Kiss, because it sounds like the end of probo-scus.
I don't think he'll be making the flight to Mexico this late in the season. We'll help him along as long as he wants to stay with us.
Follow-up note : The little butterfly disappeared on the long Thanksgiving weekend. We went away, and couldn't find him when we got back. I suppose someday we'll find a dry and perfectly preserved Monarch behind a box. He was with us for almost 6 weeks. ;-)
1 comment:
I heard that if you touch their wings, they will no longer be able to fly. Some just don't make it out of the cocoons in a healthy enough state to fly. We kept caterpillars in 3rd gr and only one of my 3 was able to fly off. I was really sad that the other 2 died.
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