Today I had to do a mercy dash, having woken up to find that our baby monarchs had eaten themselves out of house and home. All the local garden centres were out of swan plants, as tends to happen at this time of year... but luckily I found a post on the Neighbourly website by a local woman (member of
www.monarch.org.nz) who mentioned that she grows and sells swan plants. I got in touch and she told me that there were only two left - so I jumped in the car to quickly nab them for our beautiful stripy caterpillar family.
When I got the plants home I had to rummage through the nearby overgrown parsley plants to find the caterpillars that had wandered off in search of food, and then relocate them to the new lush greenery. Now our six big babies, and several smaller ones, are happily munching away. Relief all around!
Yesterday, when watching the parents flying around and I had visions of them thinking, "Oh no... our babies will be running out of food any minute now!". They seemed more frantic than usual. Or am I just projecting?
I'm so invested in their welfare I even put up an umbrella to shade them from the harsh afternoon sun. I'm sure they appreciate my efforts :-)
So now, if we want to keep them around once they transform into beautiful monarch butterflies, it's off to the garden centre for a selection of purple, pink and blue flowers. And so the cycle begins again.
1 Comment
Lovely work, Anita! Nice to hear about people caring for monarchs. They make great pets.:)