(Catching and) Releasing Butterflies

Each year, my dad and stepmother give the kids caterpillars to watch and to take care of until they transform into butterflies and are ready to be released on or around Easter.  (Click here to see last year's post.)

Let's see...

Butterflies ready to be on their own?  Check.

Two butterfly nets from Dollar Tree?  Check.

Headphones?  Um...check.

I'm not sure why Josiah (9) had his headphones on for this...

The time came for us to release the butterflies.  

Actually, as Grace (6) reminded me, we should have released them days ago because I'd been saying for several days that we would release them.  

OK, so we finally got around to it.  This year, the butterflies had to be coaxed (more precisely, picked up one by one) from the butterfly garden, and even then, they wanted to hang around and not fly away to get on with the things butterflies do in the big, wide world. 

This was a nice change from the last few years, when most of the butterflies flew out of our yard as quickly as they could.  This year, the butterflies flew close to the house and weren't in any hurry to escape from the children.

Chasing a butterfly

  

Stalking a butterfly

Catch, release, repeat

Not in any hurry to fly away

Have you ever raised butterflies from Insect Lore or another source?