It was a long wait!

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Back in August last year, as I was pruning our grape vine, I found an elephant hawk moth caterpillar. And since we were all curious to see what the ‘final version’, as it were, would be like, we kept it in a special enclosure. We gave it food and water and not long afterwards it began to pupate. It has been here in our kitchen ever since. Over the winter I would glance at it every few days, and it was interesting to see that the pupa/chrysalis gradually underwent subtle changes, so that it was the same and yet somehow, not quite the same. When we went on holiday last month we were worried it might emerge while we were away and so starve and die, so we unzipped the enclosure and left it in a sheltered place outside, but when we returned the pupa was still there so I brought it in again. I checked it every day now but still it stayed there, quietly, and I began to worry that it might have died. Pupae are not just inanimate, if they are disturbed they will actually wriggle, so I was concerned we might have accidentally bumped it a few times and caused it to use up its energy wriggling and obviously they only have so much energy stored… But then suddenly, yesterday, I glanced into the enclosure as usual and there was the moth! Everyone in the house came running to see it as we released it outside. It rested for a couple of minutes deciding what to do, then it flew off into a rose bush where it stayed, waiting for dusk. I wonder whether we will find another caterpillar later this summer? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.