No Butterfly Release today!

Although there are 100's of monarchs ready to emerge... they have not yet emerged! So our scheduled tag/release for today is cancelled. There is one scheduled for 2:00 tomorrow at CNC... but they are in the same boat with slow development due to night time temperatures. I would call them to determine if their event is on or not.

We will make every effort to reschedule our release for next Sunday, 10/4! Stay tuned!

Butterfly Release

The monarch larvae seem to be developing quite slowly due to the cool evenings... I am afraid that they are not going to be ready for a Saturday, September 26 tagging/release. Watch for a posting Saturday AM if this changes. It will be rescheduled if we aren't able to release this weekend, probably for Sunday, October 4th.

We WILL be conducting a tag/release at the Cayuga Nature Center butterfly house on SUNDAY September 27th at 2:00 PM. Check out their website for details... www.cayuganaturecenter.org.

Catching up!

I have not posted to the blog for a while... mostly been busy, but it also has not been a particularly good year for the butterflies. We got a very late start as we did not find any larvae in June like usual. We finally brought some in from outside the area in mid- July. They were reared successfully and we had a healthy crop of breeder butterflies in mid-August. They were actively breeding in the butterfly house and produced about 800 larvae, by Johanna's count!

We have spent most of today distributing larvae to the local elementary schools and child care programs for their classroom. If you are involved in education and would like to try your hand at raising some in your classroom, certainly shoot me an email at jel52@cornell.edu and we will get you set up.

There are some educational materials at www.littlesgreenhouse.com/butterflies for your use as well.

We are planning a tag and release party for Sunday, September 26th 2009 at the greenhouse. Stand by for a posting confirming the day and time...