They have arrived!

What an exciting morning - not one, but two butterflies and one moth!

By mid morning they were all ready to go out into the garden.

The butterflies spent several hours just sitting in this position before they finally took off. 

I'm looking forward to seeing them fluttering around my yard.

Any minute now…...

Any minute now and we are going to have our first butterfly. Very exciting!

I see a butterfly!

Our chrysalises may not make it to next Tuesday after all. I can see the wings inside 

Chrysalis Number 1 and also a pair of big black eyes.

Our third moth has been released and I noticed that it has a slightly different 

wing shape from the other two moths. 

The Benjis and Bobs continue to eat, but so far it is just the Bobs who are changing into pupas.

Another moth!

Our third moth emerged this morning. He is currently drying his wings and then he will be released later today. We now have 2 moth pupas left plus the pupa with the hard casing - I'm not sure if anything will ever come out of there.

The Benjis are not doing so well. None of them have shown any sign of spinning or changing and many of them have died over the last few days - we may have more luck watching them outside the office when school returns.
The two chrysalises have changed slightly in colour - they are both now a lighter green.

We Have Our Second Chrysalis!

We now have two chrysalises - one that has attached itself to the gladwrap roof and one that has attached itself to a cabbage leaf. Hopefully they will both emerge when school starts back.

Moth Number 2 and Stage 1 Chrysalis

Moth Number 2 emerged this morning and was very keen to try out her new wings and discover a suitable hiding spot in the yard.

 Ready for take off!

Can you see me?!?

Meanwhile in the Greenies container, the bigger of the two caterpillars has attached himself to the gladwrap roof using a very strong silk thread. Currently he still looks like a caterpillar, but I predict big changes over the next few days!

We have our first moth!

There was much excitement today as our first moth has emerged. 

He spent the day drying his wings and he was last seen flying across the front yard.

The Bobs are busy eating and turning into pupas.

The Benjis on the other hand are just eating. 

They don't appear to have changed in size and none of them have shown any desire to change their appearance at all!

The Greenies have celebrated the return of the cabbage by eating non stop. They are huge!

It won't be long before these two change into a chrysalis. 

Who knew that caterpillars were fussy eaters?!?

Overnight the Greenies expressed their dismay at the exchange of the cabbage leaf for a lettuce leaf by not only abandoning the lettuce but escaping too. Currently there is a large green caterpillar at large in my dining room.

Needless to say, cabbage has now been re-instated to the Greenies' container for the 2 remaining Greenies.

The big black caterpillar has had a very busy night. He turned into a pupa and cracked out of his final caterpillar skin.

In this photo he is wiggling out of his old caterpillar skin. None of the other pupas have had any exciting developments yet.

The Benjis decided that they too were fussy eaters and refused to eat the new leaves that they were given yesterday. They are now enjoying their original Cornish leaves and none of them are showing any signs at all of becoming a pupa.

Here is a shot of the intruder that was accidentally collected yesterday. He now has his own container with his own Paperbark species leaf.

It's all happening!

Well, it's all happening in the land of caterpillars!

The Bobs are happily eating and impersonating sticks.

When you look closely at the 2 small pupas you can now clearly see the moth's big eyes within the cocoon. It won't be too much longer before the one on the right emerges!

Two of the Bobs have turned a nasty black colour - I wasn't sure whether or not they were dying or changing into a pupa….

An hour later I got a big surprise when I checked them and discovered this……

The caterpillar had shed his skin and was now a pupa! So we have got 3 x Bob pupas plus 1 in progress (the black caterpillar) and 1 big hard cocoon.

Meanwhile the Greenies have been introduced to the wonderful world of lettuce as cabbage does not feature in my fridge.

The Benjis are eating machines so I collected more leaves for them (I hope they like these as I'm not entirely sure that they are from the same species of Paperbark that we have at Cornish.) They seemed happy enough.

When I looked closely at this photo I noticed that there was an intruder in the foliage! Can you see it? At the bottom right hand corner is a long green and red caterpillar!

Welcome to Cornish Caterpillars

We now have 3 green caterpillars! We saw the butterfly lay these eggs.

This Blog has been set up for the September holidays so that the children can follow the progress of their classroom caterpillars.

The Year 1 children have been collecting and observing caterpillars at school over the past 2 weeks. They have a container of "Benjis", a container of "Bobs." A container with 3 tiny green cabbage butterfly caterpillars. They also have 3 cocoons.

Every few days we'll post photos of the caterpillars so that the children can follow their progress.

The stick like Bobs - One has gone black (lying on the leaf) hopefully it is changing into a pupa!

Two Bob cocoons and one random cocoon.

The very active Benjis - No cocoons yet!