Date: 01/11/2016

Number: 1

October 11, 2015 we went to the Jade Festival, in Big Sur.  We bought several milk-weed plants (we wanted to try to introduce milkweed up where we are at about 1400 ft. elevation off HWY 166), Santa Maria, CA, but didn't notice, for the first few days, that we had Monarch larva high-jacking on the plants--they must have been very small at that point.
After a couple of days, I noticed the Monarch caterpillars--having raised many swallowtail butterflies and sphinx months with my sons over the years--they caught my eye.

It became very cold and rainy and we have many wild birds that live in and around our garden so we decided to bring the caterpillars inside and let them continue to feed on the milkweed (they ate it all!).

They grew and grew (picture #1) and to our amazement, made their chrysalis (picture # 2) and hatched, December 11, 2015!--it seemed very fast and early, but there they were!  The temperature outside was below 50 degrees and there was wind and rain, so we decided to set up an inside environment on the window-sill where they had been living (picture #3).  My son, Aiden, looked up various things to feed them, so we made sugar water, collected what blooming flowers that we could find and cut up tangerines for them. They fed on on the tangerines and flowers, I am not sure about the sugar water.

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While doing our research, we found out that some Monarchs stay put and have a relatively short life span but others are migratory and live for months.  One of our Monarchs died within three, or so, weeks, but the other, who keeps feeding on tangerines, and any of the flowers we bring in, is still alive.

We took it outside, one day when it was clear and around 65 degrees (picture #4).  It stayed in the same place in the sunlight until I brought it back inside when the temperature began to fall.


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Every couple of days, this butterfly goes on "walk-about" inside the house, and we finally find it and put it  back into the window-sill environment where it continues to feed on the cut tangerines and flowers (picture #5). 

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Today is day 30 since the Monarchs hatched, the one that  survived, is in very good shape and still lives in the open environment we have set up in our front-room window-sill (picture #6).

It is still too cold to put it outside, and if we can keep it going inside, until the weather warms up?... I would like to do the best for it that I can--any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you very much, I look forward to hearing from you!
Carrie Foster Evans
CarrieFE@aol.com
(805) 710 4952     

Santa Maria, CA

Latitude: 34.9 Longitude: -120.4

Observed by: Carrie Foster
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