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| Nymphalis antiopa Mourning Cloak |
I use an old aquarium, with an old window screen. Carefully removing the cocoon with tweezers, I tied a string to the threads on the end. Then, I taped it to a piece of vinyl, letting it dangle as it was.
There are two on the go here. The brownish one is a Mourning Cloak butterfly. The other black one is a Virginia Ctenucha. |
| Left: Mourning cloak, right Virginia |
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| Thursday night it began to change to black. I knew it was nearly time. They tell me they hatch in the morning. |
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| Looks like a pretty, upside bat! |
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| 5:30 a.m. My set-up: videocam on the tripod, thermometer says 10 C., 'twas a cold night! |
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| Sun is rising. |
I had three helpers, with Daisy on-call in the Muskoka room beyond.
I set the camera to run, popping back over to it to shut it off and begin a fresh clip. I find this works better. Then, discovering that the spare battery was dying, I'd cleverly replaced it first, I figured I had to plug it all in. That was better.
Time passed. I read yesterday's paper, did some computing, today's blog post, had 3 cups of coffee. By 7:00 a.m., hubby got up. Still nothing. By 9:00 hubby was watching tennis. Raonic won. At 9:30, I figured I'd better get my workout done. When I came back upstairs, it had broken free!
It hung on it's cocoon for over two hours. I moved it to the railing, to be out of sight of cats.
Mourning Cloak emerges from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
I waited all morning! The visible process took 10+ minutes, I sped it up 4 x's the speed. It took 2+ hours to rest and then fly away.
