Audrey raised Monarch Butterflies by herself this year. She had help looking for the eggs and caterpillars, but she fed them and cleaned them by herself, with a little help from Andrea.
It was a rough year for her. She had trouble finding the babies and she lost a higher ratio of them then normal. Considering one in ten survive in the wild, her losing 5 or 6 out of 25 or 30 is not so bad. She had a hard time losing them. She was glad none of the chrysalises fell this year. She did have one die in the process of forming his chrysalis and another die right after forming his.
When this caterpillar was roaming for a place to form his chrysalis, Audrey needed to clean the cage. While the screen was open, he escaped from his babysitter (me). I did not notice he was gone. Audrey came up to me laughing and told me we had an escapee–and he already finished his web. We let him form his chrysalis on the bottom of the cage and then propped the cage up so he could emerge.
It is the reflection off the bottom of the butterfly cage.
That is a cool picture. Was it just a photo or did you edit it for the mirror?