At the end of May, there were a few monarch butterflies fluttering among my milkweeds. Five narrowleaf milkweed plants and five years later, I now have two good-sized patches of them. Then we had heavy rains and gusty wind conditions in Fairfield, which was concerning for the eggs and larvae. The milkweeds were semi-flattened by the conditions. The good news was they recovered after some sunshine! So I have been looking every few days since the butterfly sightings to observe for any activities I could spot. The lower segments of the milkweed became naked like bamboo, which was evidence that they were chumping away. As I pruned some of the spent flowers next to the milkweeds today (6/14/2026), there was one medium-sized caterpillar! We looked again, and we found two medium-sized and one small caterpillar in the milkweeds! The third annual daily count of monarch caterpillar season has officially begun in my yard. They are so much fun to watch as they get fatter, develop into chrysalis, and become the beautiful monarch butterflies.
