Monarchy

I looked out the window to check the activity in our butterfly garden, and lo and behold! Some of our plants were nothing but stems! Upon further inspection, I saw several of these:

Monarch butterfly larvae! Whee!!

Another, earlier instar than the big one at the top. That's Dante's thumb, albeit at a weird angle, for comparison.

All summer I've been checking the milkweed we planted from the wild stuff we found by the beaver pond in Colchester. We'd also planted some Butterfly Oscar seeds (a milkweed variety)we'd gotten from Johnny's. Those plants never flowered because as the leaves filled in on the trees that surround our yard, that part of the garden was cast in too much shade. But evidently the monarchs didn't mind, and now their babies are nibbling the plants down to the stem.

We also spotted this Arrowhead Shaped Micrathena, a very cool spider from an interesting looking family of spiders. You can see more of this particular spider, as well as the others at Bugguide.net. Which is where I got this picture, since the one I took is too blurry. Someday I'll learn how to use my camera, but until then... here's my pic: