Bug of the Week: Monarch Butterfly

While snow is falling elsewhere, we are having record high temperatures. That means some insects are still active, including this monarch butterfly on our desert milkweed plant.

She was fluttering around the plant and then landing here and there.

When she landed, she curled her abdomen. (I was taking the photographs from as far as way as possible with a doubler, so as not to disturb her.)

Any idea what she is doing?

This might give you a clue.

Yes, that white dot is an egg.

You can bet we’ll be watching our milkweed plant closely over the next few weeks to see what develops.

We planted our desert milkweeds for the butterflies. Do you have any butterfly plants in our yard?

4 Comments

  1. Mike B.

    Great find! Do the eggs just stick to the stem? They look very vulnerable.

  2. Roberta

    We are going to have rain today (after weeks with no rain). We’ll see how they do.

  3. Emily Kissner

    You are so lucky to still have monarchs! Is their life cycle ongoing throughout the winter? Or will some of them migrate at some point?

  4. Roberta

    We don’t usually have monarchs this time of year, so we’ll be watching closely to see what they do.

    The eggs made it through the rain just fine.

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