When Dan and I were out in the field checking our nestboxes I happened across this chrysalis firmly attached to a horsetail stem. It was such an intriguing shape and colour, I snipped it off to bring it back and try to find out who it belonged to, too. I didn’t have long to wait with this one – four days later the owner emerged. I had checked the jar when we got home around lunchtime, and just a couple of hours later, as I was working outside, Dan came out holding the jar to say it was out. The owner, it turned out, was a beautiful Viceroy butterfly. I released it on the first daylily bloom of the year, where it paused for a bit to warm in the sun and pump its wings before taking off.
