A Lady Named “John”

A few weeks ago, Ethan excitedly told me that his class was going to raise butterflies.  I was happy for him as he talked about his caterpillar which lived in a little cup on his desk for a week.  Once the caterpillar crawled up to the lid and hung there to make a chrysalis, Ethan got to bring him home.
We taped the lid of the little cup to the inside of our butterfly habitat and waited for a couple of days.  Ethan thought it was interesting that as soon as the butterfly habitat was unfolded, Leila was sniffing and looking for something.  She remembered that fluttery things had lived in there before.
The chrysalis hung there for several days.  (I’m getting lax in my scientific observation—we should have kept track of the days.)  The butterfly eclosed while Ethan was at school, so I gave the butterfly some sliced orange and moved the habitat into the laundry room where I thought it would be safe from Leila. (Leila hates the laundry room—it’s where she gets a bath when necessary.)

When Ethan got home from school that day, we decided to let the butterfly go right away because Leila was still trying to catch it, knocking the habitat over in the process.  While we were sitting on the front porch, I asked Ethan what he named his caterpillar.  He said “John.”   “Oh,” I said. “That’s an interesting name for a Painted Lady butterfly.”  He just shrugged.  Of course, it very well could be a male—I can’t tell the difference.

John seemed reluctant to come out of the habitat, but eventually, he started crawling up the side toward the opening.

Clearly, I need to practice a bit more with this macro lens.  The depth of field is so shallow, but it’s so very cool to be able to focus so up-close.
Finally, John made his way out of the habitat and fluttered over to our dogwood tree which had just started to bloom.

I think he’s rather handsome, don’t you?