Hi Elisabeth! It's just starting to heat up over here in Germantown. Most of my nectaring plants are just getting going so the poor things are having to really work to get their nectar fix ... I've also had pearl crescents, question mark, red-spotted purple, zebra swallowtail, spicebush, painted lady, sulphurs, easter-tailed blue, spring azures, great-spangled fritallary and hackberry. And lots of luna moths this year, all males so far. But the very, very best was a cedar hairstreak - I was so excited I almost messed in my pants! And of course by the time that I returned with the camera, it was gone. But I sure hope there is a next time!

UPDATE: From the first sighting, I collected 14 eggs/1st instar cats and have released them all! I had 8 males and 6 females, with the last male being released today. Since the first time I have spotted the monarch on my milkweed, she must have been back a half dozen times, since I have collected an additional 32 cats. That's a crazy amount of cats for me to raise all at once, so I shared 10 with two of the preschool teachers at the school where my daughter attends (and have always raised some sort of butterfly every year we have been there) and have given one to a friend whose husband is a science teacher. I've felt overwhelmed with the amount of cats that I have currently but I have confidence in the people who have 'adopted' my cats. The funny thing about my milkweed is that it is a mess--leathery, aphid-infested, dirty leaves, so not the best breeding grounds for survival. My husband thinks that I should plant more milkweed (agreed!), so hopefully next year some I will have some future generations from the brood that I am raising. So, if all cats successfully become monarchs, the total will be 46!

Susan!! I just checked my milkweed cause I saw a bunch of Monarchs flying around the Black Cherry tree. At least 2 dozen eggs!! On the Purple, the tuberosa, the variegata, and the incarnata. Every plant!! One stem had 4 eggs. I don't have enough food. Guess I'll be hunting milkweed this week. Dody, when you get the plants going, I'll provide some eggs/caterpillars, not a problem!! Sandy

Congrats, and break out the candy cigars! Sometimes they remove unhatched eggs, sometimes not. I like to wait at least 3 extra days to see if it will hatch, but after that, a nestling would be so far behind the others, it would not likely be able to compete and would not survive anyway. You don't have to remove unhatched eggs, but usually I do. They are SO fragile, though, it must be done very carefully. You don't want to crush it and soil the nest, which would surely attract ants and other problems. You can use a spoon; I have a nice plastic one that came with MiracleGro that has 2 ends, one end is very deep and holds the egg nicely so it won't roll out. BlueBars