gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Butterflies in the kitchen

It's hatching time. Well, it was last week - and now our kitchen is full of butterflies.

My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and one of her yearly activities is hatching butterflies in the classroom. She orders a few dozen painted lady butterfly larvae (caterpillars) from a science supply place called Boreal Labs, along with food and some small plastic cups.

Multiple exposure image of butterfly hatching in our kitchen

The caterpillars spend about a week fattening up, then climb up to the lids of the cups and spin a chrysalis. These get pinned or taped to the roof of a large clear plastic box. A week later, pop!  Out come the butterflies. They spend a few hours drying off and trying out their wings, flop around for a day or two, and then get released into the wild blue yonder. Great learning experience for kids.

Anyhow, this year we were shipped about twice as many caterpillars as needed. We gave some to my kids' school, and there were still about a dozen left over. My girls asked if we could hatch them in our house, and I wasn't quick enough to think of a reason not to. So there we were, with a dozen chrysalises hanging from under our kitchen cabinets.

Then it occurred to me that is was an excellent photo opportunity, particularly since I had just bought a macro lens for my camera. I set up the tripod and a desk lamp, and captured the series of pictures that became the montage above (naturally, the larvae I was trained on didn't hatch as expected, and the one beside it did. But I think it makes a nice series.)

We also recently put in a granite counter top, which made for nice reflections of the little guys when they dropped down on it. Painted ladies aren't the most colourful of butterflies - particularly resting with their wings shut (which is one of the ways you can tell them apart from moths.) But they are pretty cool up close, particularly those X-patterned eyes.

A newly-hatched painted lady butterfly resting on our kitchen counter