Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: Vanessa cardui

8 more pictures in notes above! Please view to watch the amazing show!! :D (The last picture is clickable and shows a line of chrysalis'...you can click on the picture to visit the picture and read more about my visit to Butterfly Adventures and learn more about Monarch Butterflies!) Sometimes everything works out perfectly!! Steve and I went to the Jackson County Fair a month ago, and when I found out there was a butterfly exhibit, I couldn't wait to see it! Little did I know we'd get to walk inside the exhibit!! WOO HOO!!! I was a little kid in a candy store!! When I saw the boxes with butterfly chrysalis' glued to the tops, I was fascinated and thrilled to see the cocoons, but I never thought I'd actually get to see a butterfly actually emerge! In fact, the owner told me that in the five years he's done this, he's always missed the emerging. So of course I didn't expect to get that lucky. However, as I was taking pictures of a Painted Lady butterfly sitting on one of the boxes, I noticed some movement, and saw that it was a Monarch emerging from its chrysalis, literally right there in front of me!! I had that camera up and clicking instantly to record the show!! I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed this incredible experience!

Butterflies at the Fair? YES! There was a special butterfly exhibit featuring Painted Lady and Monarch Butterflies, and you'd better believe I made a bee-line to this place the moment we got to the Fair! Visitors were allowed to be inside the enclosure with the butterflies where we could feed them nectar and watch them flying around and doing their thing. They also had dozens upon dozens of chrysalis' and I got to watch a Monarch butterfly emerge!!! It was an incredible sight to behold and I'll have pictures to show in a week or so! :) The Painted Lady butterfly is one of the most wide-spread species in the world, and can be found worldwide except on Antarctica and South America! Amazing! They are often raised in kindergarten and elementary classrooms to teach children about the life cycle of butterflies. In fact, if you are interested, there are many stores online that sell "butterfly kits" (and other types of insects and critters too!), and more searching will reveal that you can find many types of butterflies and moth caterpillars and adults for sale ! If you would like to know more about Painted Lady Butterflies, Wiki has a page here: Wiki: Painted Lady Butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

Another picture from the butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair! I think it's holding feet up in front of its face but I'm not really sure...can anyone tell me? Painted Lady butterflies are in a group ("order") called Lepidoptera, which includes butterflies and moths. They can be found all over the world, except for Antarctica and in very dry deserts. There are currently 174,250 species named, with more discovered every year. Butterflies are an extremely successful insect and have been on this planet for millions of years; the oldest fossil was found in Dorset, UK, dating back 190 million years ago! Butterflies in their winged form have an average lifespan of only one or two weeks, but some generations of certain migratory butterflies, such as Monarchs, can live as long as eight months! If you would like to know more about butterflies, Wiki has a very nice page here: Wiki: Butterfly and here: Wiki: Lepidoptera

This is my last picture from the butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair. I hope that some day I'll get the chance to take pictures of these in the wild, but I certainly enjoyed this amazing opportunity. I got to see and take pictures of Painted Lady butterflies too, and even a Monarch emerging from its chrysalis! What an unforgettable experience this was! I encourage all of you to find out if there's a butterfly house near you, or, if that's not possible, think about purchasing a butterfly chrysalis so that you can hopefully be there when it emerges! Here are a few fun facts about Monarch butterflies that you may not know! ☻ Monarch butterflies migrate 2,000 miles during late summer and fall, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and return to the north again in the spring. ☻ Monarchs take four generations to make complete a migration. The first three generations live for up to six weeks, but the fourth generation lives for up to six-eight months as they migrate to a warmer climate, hibernate, and then start a new first generation in the spring time. ☻ Monarchs are poisonous and develop this toxin from the milkweed they eat in caterpillar form. This toxin builds up and remains in their body after they transform into a butterfly and begin a nectar diet. Most animals avoid their bright warning colors, but some are immune to the poison, finding them merely distasteful. If you would like to find out if there's a butterfly establishment where you live, here are some links: The Butterfly Website: Butterfly Gardens and Exhibits The Butterfly Site: Butterfly Houses, Farms and Gardens If you are interested, there are many stores online that sell "butterfly kits" (and other types of insects and critters too!), and more searching will reveal that you can find many types of butterflies and moth caterpillars and adults for sale !

YAY!!! I'm finally done with my latest work project so I'll be back to my usual Flickr uploads of three a day and visiting everyone's streams--I've missed you all so much!! I did post a few pictures of a Black Widow spider I found in the past few days, you might like to see them too! :) For fans of Lucky's Pond, I'll be adding new images in a couple of days, I have one more picture of my Black Widow spider before I am done! Now, on to the show! :) When Steve and I went to the Jackson County Fair, I couldn't wait to get into the butterfly exhibit with my camera! They had two types of butterflies on display: the lovely Painted Lady and the stunning Monarch! There were butterflies everywhere and I found this one clinging to one of the mesh screen windows. I love how you can see the screen through its translucent wings! The magnificent Monarch Butterfly is the most well-known butterfly in North America, but it is also found in many other places, including New Zealand, Australia, the Canary Islands and even the United Kingdom! This butterfly is famous for its migration from Canada to Baja, California, which occurs between August and the first frost; the return trip begins in springtime. Did you know that this trip takes three to four generations of butterflies to achieve?! In fact, the two months it takes to travel this distance is longer than the life of these butterflies! Monarchs are also one of the only insects capable of trans-Atlantic crossings. They are also quite poisonous to most animals, and advertise this fact with their brilliant coloring. If you would like to know more about these remarkable butterflies, Wiki has a great page here: Wiki: Monarch Butterfly

The butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair was one of my favorite highlights and I got lots of great pictures of the Painted Lady and Monarch butterflies there. Here is a side view of a Painted Lady butterfly sitting on the edge of a cardboard box. In case you didn't get a chance to read about these butterflies before, here's a repeat of the information about them: The Painted Lady butterfly is one of the most wide-spread species in the world, and can be found worldwide except on Antarctica and South America! Amazing! They are often raised in kindergarten and elementary classrooms to teach children about the life cycle of butterflies. In fact, if you are interested, there are many stores online that sell "butterfly kits" (and other types of insects and critters too!), and more searching will reveal that you can find many types of butterflies and moth caterpillars and adults for sale ! If you would like to know more about Painted Lady Butterflies, Wiki has a page here: Wiki: Painted Lady Butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

How many of you have wanted to take pictures of butterflies but you've never gotten the chance? Butterflies are usually very skittish and getting pictures can be a lot about luck. It's hard to get close enough before they fly away, but once in a while they hold still long enough that you may be able to take a picture! However, did you know that there are butterfly farms and houses, as well as special gardens open to the public that are specialized to attract butterflies?! In the United States, there are special butterfly establishments listed in most statws, and many are listed in other countries in the world as well. In these places, visitors often get to walk into the butterfly exhibit and spend a specified amount of time there. It's a perfect opportunity for photographers to take lots of images of species they have may never seen before, and perhaps their very first butterfly pictures! I was so excited when I found out about this butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair, and I had a fantastic time! A word of advice if you want to visit one of these places: be sure to bring your flash or at least your tripod! I didn't bring either and was horrified when I discovered how dark it was inside the exhibit. The only reason my pictures turned out at all is because my Canon 5D Mk II features ISO up to 6400, and I have an Photoshop filter called Topaz DeNoise which does an excellent job. Otherwise I would have been out of luck! If you would like to find out if there's a butterfly establishment where you live, here are some links for you! The Butterfly Website: Butterfly Gardens and Exhibits The Butterfly Site: Butterfly Houses, Farms and Gardens Explored on August 15, 2012. Highest placement at #38.

The Butterfly Adventures exhibit at the Jackson County Fair was a great experience for me, and I could have stayed there for hours taking pictures! Alas, I was with my husband and eventually he dragged me out by my ear, but I got many wonderful pictures, including this one! Have you ever held a butterfly? They feel very strange as they crawl around, and I didn't blame the young child in the exhibit for shrieking every time a butterfly landed on her! I'm 47 and I like insects a lot, but I still have to resist the urge to flail wildly if I feel a large insect crawling on me! The Painted Lady butterfly is one of the most wide-spread species in the world, and can be found worldwide except on Antarctica and South America! Amazing! They are often raised in kindergarten and elementary classrooms to teach children about the life cycle of butterflies. In fact, if you are interested, there are many stores online that sell "butterfly kits" (and other types of insects and critters too!), and more searching will reveal that you can find many types of butterflies and moth caterpillars and adults for sale !

It was a great experience to visit the butterfly exhibit at the Jackson County Fair! Not only did I get to see Monarch and Painted Lady butterflies all over the place, I also got to see rows of their chrysalis! These were glued into cardboard boxes for the exhibit with the hope that the butterflies would emerge when someone was watching. Well, I'm happy to say that *I* was one of those lucky someones!! I'll be posting a picture series tomorrow which will show the entire process!! This chrysalis appears to have gold droplets painted onto it, but that's actually how they really look! I did some research and discovered that these metallic-looking dots are quite a mystery to researchers. All species in the Monarch family have metallic dots on their chrysallis and it's thought that they may aid in camouflage, or appear as water droplets to confuse predators. I think they are beautiful! A Monarch butterfly egg hatches into a caterpillar after about 4 days. The caterpillar eats everything it can for about two weeks before the pupa stage. It finds a suitable place under a leaf, spins a silk pad to hang from, and then molts, leaving itself encased in an articulated green exoskeleton, which you can see in the picture above! The pupa stage lasts about two weeks while the amazing transformation from caterpillar to butterfly occurs inside. Tomorrow I'll post Part 2 of Butterfly Metamporphosis with a long series of pictures!!) To read a few fun questions and answers about these butterflies, The Monarch Butterfly website has a really interesting page here! The Monarch Butterfly Expert: Q&A