Here, we see a first-generation American being born yesterday under a milkweed leaf. This Monarch Butterfly has just squeezed out of her chrysalis and felt her folded wings slowly straighten out like inflatable objects.
Now, she occasionally opens those fully formed wings and then slowly closes them to get the juices flowing. Within 15 minutes she will have the strength to instinctively try her first flight. It will be awkward; but, within an hour, she’ll be flying well. Then, she’ll be sipping her first taste of nectar while pollinating flowers, no longer a caterpillar chewing leaves while pooping.
At the same time that we’re seeing this new and pristine citizen trying to catch her breath in the shadows, we see her worn relative three feet away flitting from zinnia to zinnia in the open sunlight. See above. This old, undocumented relative apparently migrated here without a passport and helped produce some of the first American Monarchs of the year. (Brooklin, Maine)
[Special thanks go to neighbor Sherry Streeter, whose garden and milkweed plantings are butterfly favorites.]