Raising Caterpillars – Update 7, Releasing the Butterflies

Well, today was the big day! It was warm and even sunny in patches, so we knew we really needed to release our butterflies in case the weather didn’t hold out for the weekend (I live in the north of England, and getting 2 days of sunshine in a row is regarded as something in the order of a minor miracle).

At first we took the butterflies outside in their enclosure, so they could acclimatise to the weather. Soon they were fluttering and flying, so we opened the lid. Two of the butterflies wanted nothing more to do with us and flew straight off over the houses, but the other three were more hesitant to go.

Amelia was wearing a butterfly patterned top and our butterflies must have thought some friends had come to greet them as, to her delight, two of them fluttered straight onto it!

Another butterfly fluttered away fairly quickly, and we placed the remaining two onto a leafy bush to finish warming their wings in the sunshine.

It’s been such an amazing experience for all of us. I thought Amelia would have been sadder about letting the butterflies go, but in the end she was just excited about them landing on her top, so we were pretty lucky there.