Garden of the Galaxy

June 28, 2017. This was a busy morning for the gila woodpeckers. I was hearing them striking metal to mark their territory every few minutes, it seemed. I was sitting underneath a eucalyptus tree when I spotted two of them far above me in the branches. It looked to a be a male and a female starting to get friendly with each other, but from my angle it was hard to see the tops of their heads and tell for sure. (Males have red tops, female brown.) Suddenly another male swooped in and chased the other male off. The female, left alone, sat on the branch for a few moments, then flew off in another direction. From Wikipedia Commons. Picture taken at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.

June 28, 2017. It was pleasant this morning, around 80 degrees F while I was watering at 7 am. The chrysalises have hardly changed. Maybe a bit darker brown?

June 26, 2017. It was so hot, a few plants seem to have barely survived the whole weekend without water, but with a deep watering this morning they all perk up. The chrysalises are still there. Online searching tells me it takes 9-14 days for a butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis, but that extreme heat or cold can make the time longer. We are on the 11th day. All my pictures are blurry. :(

June 23, 2017. The chrysalises have really gotten brown. Last day of summer school! We had watermelon eegees thanks to the decree of the mayor that, in this record heat, we needed watermelon flavor early.

June 22, 2017. They are starting to change color. Instead of all green there is some brown near the top.

Monday, June 19, 2017. Can you spot both chrysalises in this photograph?

June 16, 2017. We still have a caterpillar eating away at the milkweed before it can form a chrysalis. I watered everything deeply before taking off to the Grand Canyon for the weekend with some family visiting from Iceland.

Not a day later and we had our first cocoon. How long must the caterpillars have been there before I noticed them? According to  http://butterflybushes.com/monarch_metamorphosis.htm , probably a week! Now it is June 15, 2017. In the morning, I noticed the larger caterpillar was hanging beneath a leaf and curling upwards. Might it be about to form a chrysalis or cocoon? (Apologies for the lack of focus. I am using a three year old cell phone for this!) Caterpillar beginning to form a chrysalis. By the afternoon, the chrysalis had been formed. The same day, three hours later, it is now a chrysalis. If you want to watch the process, this is a great video by Jude Adamson.

Lo and behold, just one day after the adult butterfly was seen, we found caterpillars! There were two on the same milkweed plant, found by the boulder near E Pod.

Really hard, if it is moving! And even harder if it flies away every time you try to get close. June 13, 2017 marks the day that I first saw an adult monarch butterfly in the garden. It was drinking nectar from some evergreen milkweed. Mrs. Fuentes from the front office tells me she saw a monarch the day before, so she may be credited with the first sighting. Mrs. Yarberry and Ms. Valenzuela were lucky enough to see the butterfly with me later that day, so I have witnesses! And I did catch it on camera once. Take a look closely at the picture. Look to the left of the leftmost flower on the milkweed. Do you see it?

Back in May, we built a butterfly garden for Valencia Middle School. Once school ended for the summer, I have gotten to see it almost every day. I am getting to know the wildlife around the school grounds, the plants, and most especially, the butterflies. This blog is a way for me to share what I have seen with the whole school community. I hope you enjoy it! -Ms. Klein Ms. Valenzuela was working hard!