‘Though we travel the world over, to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
∞
The autumn generation of Monarch butterfly each year is a traveler. Hidden within her DNA is instructions for how to get to a roosting tree that she’s never been before, a place that even her mother and grandmother never knew. In the way her great- or even great-great-grandmother did last winter, she is predetermined to spend the first three months of her life some thousand miles or more from she was born (in Houston), with millions of others of her kind.
She is a traveler, a pretty one at that, and she might fly 50-100 miles every day until she gets to her destination.
We Call Her ‘Flash’
Ready for Travel!
The 1st generation — her grandmother — hatched in spring and is genetically different than the last of the year. 4th- and 5th-gens do not reproduce initially; they are programmed to fly! Following a long winter’s rest, they return again the following year to guarantee next year’s population. Millions of years it has been the way, and only until very recently, it has been working well for them.
Nature’s brilliance sometimes comes at a cost, particularly when competing with other Earthlings for space. Habitat loss due to one very successful hominid (that would be us) results in urban sprawl, roads and highways, and modern agriculture that have all but eliminated the single food source on which its offspring depends. Without milkweed, Mommy monarchs simply have no place to lay their eggs, no cafeteria on which monarch babies (caterpillars) can dine and get a good start in life.
It compounds through the year. Without the 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-gens annually, the 4th-gen would cease to exist to migrate each year. No migration return, no successive populations, much less a growing one. And on it goes.
Timing Is Everything
Bottom one emerged (see previous photo),
upper has a few days to go.
Recently their population has been plummeting, and now the Monarch butterfly is a poster-child for insect extinction and conservation. Who doesn’t like the pretty butterfly who effortlessly flits from flower to flower, vibrant in its wing patterns and colors? (Beetles and locusts and flies, they aren’t very pretty, but some of them are disappearing too. They all deserve equal attention.)
So why not plant milkweed in our home gardens and landscapes then? Native plants (antelope horn, swamp, green milkweeds) can be hard to find and for some, even harder to get established. Tropical milkweed grows more like the weed that it is, but planting a non-native is not without its downside. Many suspect it has been promoting the deadly parasite infection — Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE, for short) — which is killing monarchs outright.
It’s sad when a chrysalis shows signs of this disease, but at least this one won’t make it to the roosting tree and spread the parasite to others.
OE Infected
Doomed.
Here’s what you can do:
- Plant milkweed, even tropical if that’s all you can find. Better, build a pocket prairie that is never mowed.
2. Save some seeds, let seeds re-establish (milkweed is annual). In time, the scattered seeds will sprout, and you can once again enjoy your monarch investation all over again in spring next year.
3. Cut down non-native milkweeds to 6″ stumps early November, certainly by Thanksgiving, if you’re in the Houston area. It will both discourage Monarchs from staying behind, and it will lessen further damage to this species in the process.
Related Posts:
- 1st of Year: 1st Generation Monarch | DirtNKids
- Epic Migration: Which Way Did That Butterfly Go? | Flight of the Butterflies
- OE Fact Sheet | Monarch Joint Venture
- It’s The Little (Exoskeleton) Things | DirtNKids Blog
DirtNKids Blog 
Oh man! That is some really cool stuff! I will pass this along to some folks who will want to do it! Love the photos too of course! ❤
LikeLike
Always nice seeing you here, Courtney! We got to witness thousands of monarchs clinging to the backside of small trees on the beach yesterday. They are moving on, but the wind proved a bit much for one day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wowsers!! Beautiful! Thanks for sharing! 🤩
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I went down to the Brazoria refuge yesterday, I saw that the mowing was done — all of the milkweed that was left has been cut back. I’m glad that I managed to get some photos of the last monarchs in the area, and the caterpillars.
I did see some late and quite ragged butterflies on sunflowers, but after looking at them , I decided they were queens, not monarchs.
Clearly, we’ve had a good migration this year. Still, as the article points out, there’s a lot to be done. I thought it was especially interesting that the decision on whether to designate monarchs as a threatened species is being influenced by their numbers in parts of the world (like New Zealand and Australia) where they aren’t migratory. The irony is that the monarch populations there are stable because both the butterflies and the milkweed they feed on were imported.
There certainly were a lot of pollinators yesterday working the flowers that remain. Sunflowers, asters, camphor daisy, and sage were hosting everything from carpenter bees to teeny-tiny flies. It was such fun to see.
LikeLike
I’m glad to read they are persevering! Thank you for sharing the article link. Fellow bloggers and my mother have boasted of watching enormous ‘flocks’ (what are a group of butterflies called?) fly by or fly through while they gaped in awe; I have yet to see more than a handful of individuals at a time.
We’ve one remaining chrysalis on the kitchen table. He was just one lone caterpillar on an already trimmed milkweed (no more leaves), so he came in to be cared for in his last crawly moments. He serves as a reminder in our home that all life is precious .. and precarious.
LikeLike
I love monarchs, Shannon. We have had a milkweed patch for a few years now, and even though it seems to enlarge from one summer to the next, I have yet to see eggs or chrysalides on them. Still hoping…
LikeLike
Perhaps they just haven’t found them yet. They will, and once that happens they will lay eggs, then that generation will return, and on and on. It’s how they’re programmed. Maybe in the spring!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope so!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was lucky enough to witness a kaleidoscope of monarchs migrating past my office window a few weeks back.
My milkweed has gone to seed and I’ve saved some for our next house. And surprisingly to me, the explosion of blossoms on the pineapple sage didn’t mind last week’s killing frost one bit, so yesterday it was a docking station for a few hungry flyers.
LikeLike
My mom tells me today that a ‘large grouping’ of monarchs (apparently migrating) stopped for a quick drink on some wildflowers and moved on. I’m jealous of both of you .. have never seen this!
Can’t ever have enough nectar flowers for the fall migrants. It’s hard cutting down the milkweed, flowers and all. (I do save the seeds.)
LikeLiked by 1 person