Butterflies!

Eighteen days ago, we saw caterpillars crawling up the exterior walls of our house, looking for a place to transform.  Today as Tom was heading back to work after lunch he spotted the first butterfly emerging!

Here's a picture of the first Mourningcloak butterfly emerging.  Lukas and Konrad were enthralled (Natalie was at school so she missed the show).

Konrad was excited to see it up close, so Tom held him so he could see better.  Something we think is INCREDIBLE is that there is still a pupa attached just above our garage door (if you click on the picture of Tom holding Konrad, you can see it in front of Konrad's nose).  It's amazing that it hasn't been knocked down by the garage door opening or closing, but it's still there!

When I saw this butterfly, it didn't appear that it had opened its wings yet, so I thought we had time to visit it again before it would fly away.  But when Lukas and I checked on it 30 minutes later, it had already flown off into the windy, springtime day.

There are at least five other pupas that have yet to open, so tomorrow might be another butterfly day!