Releasing of the Butterflies

By Saturday morning, the butterflies had finished mating, so we figured it was finally time to release them. Below is our video of the event. I think that we all had mixed feelings about the whole thing. It was fun watching them fly off, but also sad to not have them in our home any longer.

The Birds and the Bees

On Friday when everyone got home, we were all prepared to release the butterflies. Then Chad came up to me and said, "Mom, I don't think we can release them...they are mating." I knew I definitely had to check that out. Sure enough, we had two couples that had paired up. Evan took a look and asked, "Why are they attached at the butt?"

Let's just say that the evening turned out to be an educational one. At one point we even had some excitement going on when one butterfly tried to break up a couple. He fluttered, shoved and poked at the couple for several minutes before finally giving up.

We read that they usually mate from a hour or so to overnight, so we decided to wait until the next morning to release them.

One butterfly trying to break up a couple.

Butterfly Update

The boys were surprised and excited last night when they got home from karate and saw that we had five butterflies. Todd opened the side of their pavilion to set a plate inside to hold their sugar water saturated paper towels, which will be their food source. All of a sudden, a butterfly escaped and started flying around the room. You should have heard us all yelling at him, "Catch it, but don't touch the wings!!!" Todd gave me a look like, "Are you serious, how am I supposed to do that?" Anyway, in a few seconds, Todd was able to capture it in his cupped hands and return it to the pavilion. No harm done; what a great dad!

We all got another surprise this morning when we woke up and all ten caterpillars had become butterflies. They are gorgeous. Now I just have to convince Evan that we should set them free. I feel sorry for them being all cooped up.