All Gone

Damn.  I am so bummed out.  Shortly after I published the post yesterday about the remaining Monarch Butterfly caterpillar, I went out to take another look at it and it was gone.  It had stripped off most of the leaves on the stem it was on, so it was pretty much exposed, as was one of them the day before, so we're thinking the birds got them all.

But which bird?  Was it one of the House Finches?  The Bushtits that are flocking in the neighbor's Trumpet Creeper right now?  The shy, reclusive California Thrasher that flits in and out of the hedge to break off chunks of suet?  Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick?

My money's on the Scrub Jay.  Members of the Corvid family, they are highly intelligent and opportunistic birds.  Cindy had just hung a feeder full of peanuts out because we knew there was at least one around, so we're guessing the Jay just thought we were providing yet another tasty snack for it.

While we were watching the Monarch Butterfly flitting around and looking at the caterpillar earlier in the afternoon, Cindy had made the remark that maybe we should take the remaining caterpillar into protective custody, but unfortunately we didn't actually do that.  Lesson learned, too late.

So now we will move the Asclepia to the front yard, where there is less cover for birds.  They tend to hang around the feeders in the back yard, so future butterfly larvae should have a better chance of survival.  And maybe eventually we'll get to see the whole metamorphosis process.