I saw this little fellow – my first Monarch butterfly caterpillar of the year – yesterday. He’s the only one that I could find in the large plot of common milkweed that Sherry Streeter is cultivating to nurture this troubled species. The toxic leaves from plants in the milkweed family (wild and cultivated) are the only foods that Monarch caterpillars eat.
Nonetheless, I’ve been seeing a good number of Monarch butterflies for several weeks. While many of the nectar-producing flowers on milkweed and other plants have faded, our liatris (blazing star) is blooming and attracting them:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 3 and 7, 2025; sex of caterpillar assumed.)