Releasing our butterflies 23/6/15

Our butterflies came out of their cocoons last Saturday (3 of them) and Sunday.

Teacher brought them fruit and sugared water to drink while their wings hardened.

Our painted lady butterflies are beautiful.

Today we went outside and released them back into the wild so they can enjoy life and have families of their own.

They all flew off and we said goodbye to them.

Then a terrible thing happened..........a little willy wagtail bird followed one of our butterflies, caught it and ate it as we watched.  We were so sad to have seen this, but we understand all about the food chain, and it was sad but interesting to see the food chain in action.

Here is all that remains of our poor butterfly!

Our caterpillars 2015

Our caterpillars arrived by post last Monday, the 18th of May.
Last week our caterpillars were exactly like the caterpillars in the song:

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

There's a tiny caterpillar, a tiny caterpillar

There's a tiny caterpillar on a leaf, wiggle, wiggle

This week (May 25th) they are like the second verse:

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

There's a big fat caterpillar, a big fat caterpillar

There's a big fat caterpillar on a leaf, munch, munch

Our caterpillars at 2 weeks (June 3rd)

Our first cocoon (June 4th)

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

The caterpillar spins, the caterpillar spins

The caterpillar spins a cocoon, spin spin

One of our 5 caterpillars is now in its cocoon.
Cocoons in our butterfly garden: (June 9th)

All 5 of our caterpillars are now in their cocoons.

We gave each cocoon a name before transferring it to our butterfly garden.

We can't wait for all of our cocoons to emerge as beautiful Painted Lady butterflies.

Releasing the butterflies

 We released our butterflies today.
It is EXACTLY 5 weeks since we got our caterpillars in the post.

We were so sorry to see them fly away but we are so happy that they are free to enjoy this lovely sunshine.

We hope they are happy and that they lay lots of little eggs so their lifecycle can begin all over again.

5 pretty butterflies

All 5 of our butterflies are out of their cocoons at last.

We are thrilled.

We will let them fly away tomorrow.

 Our Painted Lady butterflies are so pretty.

Don't worry about the red spots, they are not blood, that is just left over colouring from their wings!

We have a butterfly!

After 4 weeks and 3 days...............

............ Sparks has arrived!

He is the very first of our butterflies to emerge from his cocoon.

We are so proud of him.

Now his cocoon looks very empty.

 We have left some banana, some apple and some sugared water for Sparks to drink over the weekend.

We hope his friends will emerge from their cocoons too.