It emerged!

The most exciting happening of the summer--ok, except for Tony visiting, Jon graduating, and mum coming for a visit!--was the hatching of our butterfly chrysalis. It was collected in May from the side of a cement culvert and we were beginning to think it was dead. 

 Imagine my great surprise one afternoon last week (18th of June), when I was putting away groceries and saw something inside the PB jar the chrysalis was in!!! If I had known it was going to emerge, I would  have never ever gone shopping!!!!!

 I got it out of the jar, where it was a tad crowded, and let it sit in one of my garden containers. It was such a windy day, I wanted to release it inside the house! However, with 3 cats, I knew a newly winged creature wouldn't last long.

 I helped it move to several perches in my garden-The bachelor buttons were  not really strong enough for it to sit on as its wings dried, so we got it to a stick that was stuck in the ground.

                           This is the worn chrysalis-you can see where the swallowtail emerged from.

 As it dried the markings grew more pronounced. It was so beautiful and I wanted to photograph it from both the front and the back.

 This last photo, I had moved it again to a 'safer' spot. It really was windy and the poor thing couldn't fly yet. I wanted to keep it somewhat sheltered and here it is fluttering, so it looks rather blurry. We don't know what happened. It was gone by the time we looked for it the next day. We only  hope it got a chance to fly off and do whatever butterflies do!