abandoned and beautiful....

about a day or two before a monarch hatches

the chrysalis that has been his home for 12 days

turns transparent and you can see his wings

I took this photo right after his birth

which happened in seconds

~blinking can cause you to miss it~

and

when his newly winged body fell out of the chrysalis

it was the size of his original caterpillar body

can you see how his wings are still wet and curled

?

approximately 10 to 15 minutes after his birth

his body became a normal butterfly sized body and his wings were straightened out

~~

an hour later he abandoned the only home he ever knew

~his womb of sorts~

and

with our help off the screened in porch

he headed south

with mexico on his mind

~~

on saturday we missed the birth of our first butterfly, but yesterday we caught the birth of our second one with

my camera and also on video. it was spectacular to say the least. we have four more to go and I pray that I get to see

at least one more birth.....what a miracle.

~~

if you have time

stop over here to read more about what I wrote in regards to "abandoned"

~~

many of us will be playing here all week

so keep checking back to see the new stories and photos

*