Early one morning in October, under a clear sky promising another beautiful fall day for Tucson, I walked past my hybrid passion flower vine on my way to the mailbox. There I noticed a caterpillar hanging down by its tail-end.

It didn't move much all morning except now and then it would shudder some, and jiggle, and curl up a little more or a little less. Around noon it acted as if it was having convulsions. It stretched and its exoskeleton or 'skin' split on top of the head on the dorsal side and the skin moved up its body like the sleeve of a long-sleeved sweatshirt being moved up on an arm. It moved all the way to the top and fell down after a few swings of what was once a caterpillar. A new skin showed but it took on quite a different shape with a lovely yellow color on part of it. This soon turned into a nondescript tan color with darker markings. I realized that I had just watched the act of pupating - a larva turning into a pupa, or more specifically when it comes to butterflies, a caterpillar becoming a chrysalis.

And so started years of looking for butterflies, their eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalises; observing the changing from one form into another. And, it led me to expose lots of film. Using lots of patience and hours by the score, I learned a great deal by observing, reading and asking questions.

Later, after seeing now and then a certain butterfly laying eggs on the passion flower vine throughout the winter and finding caterpillars, I learned that it was the Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae, that uses the passion flower vine for its larval foodplant. The ornamental version of the vine can be found in many yards all over town, but now I prefer the native plant, Passiflora foetida even though at first it was ignored by the Gulf Fritillary. It does very well in my yard and is a more beautiful vine; pubescent, with finely sculpted leaves, fast growing and producing more flowers. These though smaller, are more exquisite than those of the ornamental.

To observe the progression from butterfly egg to adult stage, I had to take several caterpillars into "protective custody" to keep them from becoming food for hungry cactus wrens. All the adults, when ready to fly, were released in my yard where the egg had been laid or the caterpillar was collected.

By watching the Gulf Fritillary in my yard, it was not too difficult to find one of its bright yellow eggs. In a day or so, it would become darker and the top blackens when it is ready to hatch. It turns out that the first order of business for the tiny caterpillar is to eat the eggshell and usually no trace of it remains.