Butterfly tagging on September 21, at Littles Greenhouse

Hey we had a great day for the tagging and release on Sunday, 9/21 at our greenhouse/butterfly house! Over 40 monarchs were tagged that day. In total, that makes 125 tagged for the year of the 425 that have been released. There are 75 more tags... and many more chysalises to go!

Almost all of the larvae have completed the cycle and have pupated... just a few left. We are certainly concerned as we close to the first frost... and hope everyone will make it on their way before that time!

Video of a larvae becoming a chrysalis

Great video of a larvae going into a chrysalis...

http://picasaweb.google.com/pegazzani/Monarch#slideshow

Tagging Butterflies at the Cayuga Nature Center

Johanna and Halee Little afix a mylar tag to a monarch butterfly at the Cayuga Nature Center's annual tag/release today at the Center. In all, 25 of the 50 butterflies released were tagged as they begin their migration to Mexico.

First Tagging Date

The first tagging date of the 2008 season will be this Saturday, September 6th, 1:00 PM at the Cayuga Nature Center. Our second batch, monarchs who will be migrating, will probably be the 13th of September... but I will have a better handle on that as this week shapes up. We have more larvae than milkweed to feed them, so we are scrambling to adopt some out as well as secure some common milkweed! Delivered the larvae to Belle Sherman and South Hill Schools today... will be some excited Kindergardeners tomorrow!

Lifecycle of the Monarch

We have created a summary of the lifecycle of the monarch, in pictures, at www.littlesgreenhouse.com/butterflies

Enjoy!

Monarch Migration

I am getting a lot of questions from people as to "when do the monarchs migrate"... The answer is "soon"....

Monarchwatch.org has some good info on peak migration. The URL is http://monarchwatch.org/tagmig/peak.html

We are at lattitude ~42

Hope this helps.

J

Ithaca Journal Article

Very nice article in the Ithaca Journal today! We felt that it was very accurate and well written. (Note to self: Never tell a news reporter that the South Hill School kids call you the "butterfly guy...")

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080814/NEWS01/808140332/1002

Cayuga Nature Center

The butterfly house at Cayuga Nature Center is in fully swing! There is an exhibit in the center with eggs and larvae... and over 50 butterflies in the butterfly house. Great time to check out the exhibit as well as all the CNC has to offer!

First Butterfly Release

On Monday, August 11, we released over 300 monarchs from the butterfly house! What a truly awesome sight!

Tagging Monarchs

Shoot, I forgot...

Last year we tagged about 100 monarch butterflies we raised at the butterfly house. These tags are created and distributed by a great organization MonarchWatch... their website is www.monarchwatch.org. The migrating monarchs are tagged and if the butterfly makes it to central Mexico to overwinter, tags are collected by the locals. So, for the 2007 year, over 100,000 tags were created, just under 100,000 were distributed to the public, just over 600 were recovered in Mexico in March 2008. Of the 600, 329 were for the 2007... the balance from prior years. Of the 329 tags recovered from the 2007 year, TWO came from our butterfly house! How about that!

J

2008 Season

It seems impossible that the last entry I made in this blog was last August! Time just flies by...

Well we have a new butterfly season upon us. We have the first groups of monarchs and black swallowtails in the butterfly house... the females are busy laying eggs... we will have lots of adults to release as the season goes along.

Let's catch up with what has gone on this season already, that I did not have time to write about. Last season, we raised a number of cecropia moth larvae to the point they formed cocoons; we wintered them over in a cold basement. This spring, we put them in the greenhouse and by the end of May, all had emerged. We put the females in an old bird cage and let the males go in the greenhouse. Within a week, they began laying eggs... which are now hatching and feeding on a crab apple tree in our yard. We have them in a protective sleeve, so the predators won't get them. The adult moths only live for 10-14 days, then they die... kind of sad to see when you have spent so much time and effort raising them. Oh well...

My intent this year is to chronical the life of the butterflies with pictures... trying to take shots at every stage of development and to post the pics here at the blog. Hopefully, time with permit this to happen.

Final thought tonight... remember the butterfly house at Cayuga Nature Center. It is a great stopping point on your way north on Rt 89. They have created a wonderful community resource and we need to support it... and them. More on that later.

J