Yesterday I went out to observe the monarch caterpillars I talked about
two days ago and was a little bummed to only find three caterpillars after observing four on the plants on the first day. And since I figured the other one was taken by a bird, I was grateful I had rescued one to see if I could be a good "adopted mama". Here are the three I saw yesterday:
But today... I counted not four but SIX on the plants. Today was also the first chance I've been able to clean out the glass jar my little guy has been living in, so you can see him in his jar at the end of the post...
These first two pics are the same caterpillar (the youngest one is also in the background here but far enough away that he's pretty blurry)
(I love this shot with two of them)
Oh I'm so excited!!! They are voracious eaters though, so I hope the plants can take it.
I've also considered "rescuing" another of the six that are currently outside, but haven't yet. I don't want them to kill each other in the confined space of this jar. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
I have no idea whether they would harm each other in confinement, but I love your photos! :-) what kind of lens are you using? Are you doing manual aperture?
ReplyDeleteI dunno either. However, today I saw two of them on a leaf together and they seem to kind-of bonk heads (I shot some video and will upload it today or tomorrow). I'm using the Canon EF 18-55 lens that I got with the camera. Usually I'm zoomed in all the way. With that lens I can get within inches of them. If I were to use my 70-300 lens I'd have to stand several feet away and that would just be too tricky because the other plants get in the way. Mostly the auto does fine, but when there's light behind them, I have to use manual. And, I generally have to increase the exposure where the caterpillars are because they tend to hide out in the shadows. Stay tuned... new photos and possibly video up soon. :)
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