Progress Report on Lauren's Caterpillar Refugees

Check out this website all about the
 monarch butterfly in New Zealand. 

It has lots of valuable information, interesting facts, and ideas about how to care for the monarch butterfly and caterpillars.

Lauren rescued some of our very hungry caterpillars and took them home to her caterpillar-less swan plant. They have obviously settled quickly and are busily eating their way through their new homes. 

Here are some photos Lauren took of her happily relocated caterpillars. 

This photo gives an excellent close-up of the caterpillar's 3 pairs of legs and its prolegs. Great photo, Lauren.

One of Lauren's caterpillars is ready to turn into a chrysalis.

Other good news:

- We were given three healthy leafy swan plants in pots by a parent from Mrs Scott's room. Danny, DC and Lauren planted these in Huia 2's half of our garden plot - which we now want to develop as a bit of a waste land - with butterfly-friendly plants. (Sorry, Mrs Fowler, but it's for a good cause.) 

- We have given away lots of caterpillars to people with  vacant  swan vacant plants at home.

- We found new seedlings of swan plants growing in Huia 2's half of the garden.

- Many of the fatter and larger caterpillars, which we thought were going to starve, have turned into chrysalises. 

- Our relocated caterpillars are making good progress.

Here are some photos of our caterpillar rescue and relocation: 

Lauren, DC and Danny found some space in Huia 2's half our our garden plot. They planted one of the donated swan plants there.

Some caterpillars had already found some self-sown swan plant seedlings. I wonder if this swan plant will ever get a chance to grow full size ...

This swan plant is planted a bit close to the olive tree- but the caterpillars will feel at home around all the chrysalis-like olives on the tree at the moment. We could only plant the swan plants in spaces we could reach without standing on any of the other caterpillar-bearing seedlings we found in this garden.

Lauren watering her newly planted swan plant.

Look very carefully and you can find three desperate caterpillars looking for food. They do not like to eat rosemary and settled very quickly into eating again when they were put on a swan plant.

Danny relocating the caterpillars - very carefully. We usually do it with a leaf but this little guy would not cling to it and curled up, so Danny did it very gently by hand. How many caterpillars can you count here. Do you think there will be enough food for them? What could we do?

We tend to talk to the caterpillars and encourage them to hang on carefully. It seems to be working.

Danny and DC take care not to tread on any caterpillars which we found crawling along the clover and ground level swan plant seedlings.

Ground level caterpillars. We had to be very careful not to stand on them.

I wonder where this little guy is going? Which end do you think is which?

Check out the previous blog to  find out what these two chrysalises looked like the day before.