This beautiful Monarch is about ready to take it's first flight.

My friend Brenda invited me to join her and a couple of other ladies for some gal time at the calendar gardens yesterday, and to my pleasant surprise one of her butterflies were ready to be released, so she brought it with her.

She has a lightweight carrier made of mesh that she bought at a garage sale, and it seems to serve the purpose just fine.

This time I used my faithful Canon 40D with the canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro IS USM lens.

This monarch gave us all some time for photo opts before it took flight, and flitted, and glided around the garden.

This is one of the neatest things to experience.

I appreciate your comments, thank you in advance.

tigs=^..^=