Monarch Hatch

Being a naturalist means there is always something interesting to see in the world. Yesterday I got to watch baby Eastern Phoebe's fledge from their nest. Today...Monarchs.


My co-host on the podcast Paul collected a Monarch butterfly caterpillar from his back yard. He and his daughter placed it into a special pop-up monarch habitat and watched as it hung from the ceiling and formed a chrysalis.


He uses the Port a Bug which works great and is affordable. It collapses into a carrying case when not in use and you can see through the sides.

Paul wasn't going to be home the day the butterfly was expected to emerge from the chrysalis so he left it in his cubicle. As expected, when I came in this morning there was a brand new Monarch butterfly hanging from the bottom of the empty chrysalis. I took it outside and the circle of life continues on.


Raising butterflies is a great educational opportunities for families. Just be sure to do it responsibly and take good care of them until they can be released.

~Kirk

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Video of Eastern Phoebe Fledging from Nest

Eastern Phoebes take 18 days to fledge from their nest so I was excited today at the prospect of catching the event on our nest cam at work. The eggs hatched on June 27 so today was the 18th day. Time to fledge from the nest. The birds were still there in the morning so I started recording the live feed. I checked back half and hour later and they were gone. It looks like one bird was thinking about leaving and then fell out. It quickly flew back but bumped another bird out. Once that bird left everyone followed. It was over in a matter of seconds. Kind of fun to watch. This was the third nest attempt this year by this pair of phoebes. The first nest had all the eggs destroyed by cowbirds. The second attempt was a nest full of cowbird eggs and then finally on the third try the cowbirds left them alone and they successfully raised five new phoebes.




~Kirk

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A Lilydale Brachiopod

Time for another fossil. I'm taking a bit of a break from blogging as I get some other things in line. So, in the mean time I'm posting a bunch of the fossils I'm photographing for a guide I'm making for the kids in the summer camp I'm teaching. This one is Hesperorthis tricernia. As I've mentioned before, I'm in the process of giving these common names to help kids learn about them. I've named this one the Western Three-hundred. It has a very distinct shape in profile. It is a pretty cool fossil to find.
~Kirk

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