The first butterfly, following the siren call of freedom

Four of the five butterflies are now out in the world. We tried to release them all on Friday since we were going away for the weekend and wouldn’t be able to feed them, but only two were ready to take flight. The other three decided the cage was a better place to be, so my brother kindly came and fed them on Saturday. It was a little sad to see them fly off. I had this completely irrational feeling that we shouldn’t have released them on Friday, since they only emerged the day before. They just seemed so young to be out in the world on their own! Yes, yes, completely silly, I know.

When we got home on Sunday evening, the remaining butterflies were doing well and two seemed perhaps ready to venture off into the great unknown. We held onto them until this morning and then set the cage outside to see if they were interested in going. Two of them took advantage of the opportunity, although one took quite a bit of time before she was ready to go! We still have one butterfly left, and she isn’t looking very good. I think she was damaged when one of the cats knocked the cage off the table because she has a crumpled wing and a bent antennae. Poor little thing, she tries to fly but can’t do anything more than twitch and flail at the bottom of the cage. I suppose she would make a nice dinner for a bird (after all, birds have to eat too!) but I’m not quite sure we’ll be able to bring ourselves to do that. Right now the butterfly is hanging in the kitchen, all alone. We’re going away this weekend too, so we’ll have to decide what to do with it soon. I wonder if my brother will be around this weekend…