Monarch rescue ~

Just to preface these next few photos ~ I stopped by a local park with my son two weeks ago to check out the "disc golf" course (a sport he just picked up).  While we were walking around the course, I notice a pond with milkweed growing around it!  I found a couple monarch eggs on one of the plants and decided that we would come back the next day ~ for my son to play on the course and for me to look for more eggs or caterpillars!  We arrived at the park around 11am and found that someone had just weed whacked down all the milkweed plants.  My heart sank ~ I spent the next hour, going around and inspecting all the plants that had been chopped down.  I ended up finding 40 eggs and 1 full grown caterpillar!  I had found a few eggs on my plants at home as well, with a total of 45 eggs.  We were leaving the next evening for vacation so I had my neighbor watch the caterpillar for me and I placed a large sprig of swamp milkweed (with a watering tube)  in the box with the eggs. We returned in 5 days to find 13 eggs had hatched.  Unfortunately, the others didn't.  The large caterpillar had made it's chrysalis the day after we left!  I have written to the park officials concerning the milkweed.  There is such a shortage of monarchs in our area and they are only making the problem worse. 

I cut a small part of the leaf around the eggs and placed them on a damp paper towel.

This is the full grown cat that I found~ and now as it's chrysalis.  I detached it from the lid of the cage and glued it to a tree branch placed in a flowerpot of stones, and set it inside the butterfly observation house.  I'll post a photo of it later when there are more on it!

Here are a few of the cats on the swamp milkweed.

I found 6 more eggs on some milkweed grown along the road yesterday.  My family thinks I'm nuts, but the cats are so vulnerable to bees and birds out in the open like that.

This is one of the newly hatched cats~  I have to use a magnifying glass to get a good look at them!

Please plant milkweed!