Butterflies

For Amelia's birthday (last year), she got a butterfly habitat.  It was a very exciting gift, but since her birthday is in the fall, I was worried that winter would come soon.  We needed time to get the caterpillars ordered, watch their life cycle, and then release them while the temperatures were above 70 degrees outside.  I really didn't want to risk that these butterflies wouldn't be able to live once they were released.  So, we waited until school was out and I sent away for our caterpillars.

 

 

Amelia and Ashley were so excited when they arrived.  Now our problem was that it was time to go to my family reunion and I really didn't want to take caterpillars with me.  We only got to observe them for a few days before it was time to go.  So, we took them down to the girls' room while we were gone hoping that the nice cool basement would be the perfect place for them.

 

 

It worked out great!  When we came back from camping, all five caterpillars had moved on to the chrysalis stage and were hanging from the top of the lid just like they were supposed to.  One of the chrysalis' did come detached so I just hoped for the best for that little caterpillar.

The next step was to move all the chrysalis' to the butterfly habitat and wait for them to emerge.  After a few days, all 5 butterflies had come out.  We fed them little pieces of watermelon and oranges and watched them fly around their little habitat.

 

 

 

Finally it was time to set them free.  I was hoping that the kids would be able to get the butterflies to land on their fingers before flying away but it didn't happen quite like that.  Luckily, the butterflies did leave the habitat one at a time so we did get to watch each of them fly away.  I wish that I would have had more flowers in my yard so they would have wanted to stick around a little longer.  Oh well.  This is definitely something that we will have to do again next year.