Butterflies

Miles got a butterfly habitat for Christmas last year. We finally had the chance to order the caterpillars last month. For the past few weeks we have watched the caterpillars go from crawling around to hanging upside down and making themselves into chrysallids. Miles was faithful about checking his caterpillars several times a day to see if they were chrysallids yet. Then the watch began to see when the butterflies would hatch. He was faithful in checking for the butterflies for about a week, it took just over a week for the first one to come out, and then he got right back into checking his butterflies several times a day.

The day finally came to release the butterflies into the wild. This was a much anticipated event in the house. We brought the habitat into the backyard, Miles unzipped the top:


and we waited:


It really seemed like a longer wait then it was, only about 5-10 minutes for the first one to find it's way out:

The second one followed pretty quick, then we played for awhile, checking back occassionally. It was easily an hour or two before the fourth butterfly figured out the top was open. The fifth one may very well still be in there. It still was when we came in for lunch, and didn't seem like it had any intention of ever leaving.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood, and it seemed that one or two of the butterflies kept coming and circling around the boys. A couple seemed to be hanging around the backyard. All in all, Miles loved this whole experience. Thank you Uncle Paul and Aunt Jennifer for a wonderful present!