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Happening
at the Crossroads
July 21,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
"Mariposa
monarcha!" the two Mexican boys shouted. These young men joined me for
a nature hike, and to them, the forests and meadows were foreign
indeed. And my ability to explain things in Spanish was limited, to say
the least. But, the love of monarch butterflies created an instant bond
and understanding.
The orange and black butterfly was
searching for a place to lay her eggs. She will never make the trip to
the mountains of Mexico. The butterflies we see in July most likely
have been born and will die here. Their offspring may well live and die
here too (It's hard to say because weather can influence the time it
takes for a monarch to mature.) But the caterpillars which emerge from
their chrysalides in September will lack the urge to breed. Instead,
they will take wing and migrate thousands of miles to groves of trees
in Mexico where, if conditions are favorable, they will survive the
winter.
The monarchs that migrate in the fall rarely make it
back to Wisconsin. Usually, they leave Mexico in early spring to breed
in Texas or Louisiana. Their offspring fly north, arriving in Door
County in late May or early June. They mate and lay eggs on milkweed
plants.
The mid-summer non-migratory generations of monarch
butterflies are abundant at Crossroads because our upland areas provide
both milkweed plants for the caterpillars and an array of
nectar-producing flowers on which the adults can feed.
Come
September, adult monarchs will migrate to Mexico... to the very groves
where their great- great-grandparents spent the previous winter.
Join
Summer Naturalist Amberle Eversen in learning about these remarkable
insects during a program Tuesday, July 29 at 11:00. Participants will
view a fascinating film in the Collins Learning Center and then go out
into the field to search for eggs, larvae, and adult monarchs.
Tuesday
afternoon at 3:30, a video presentation of "Planet Earth" will serve as
a starting point for a discussion on ecology and survival.
Crossroads
at Big Creek is a donor -supported educational center located on
Highway 42/57 and Michigan Street (County TT) in Sturgeon Bay. Trails
are free and open to the public.
The
Collins Learning Center at Crossroads is located at on County Highway T
across from Whitetails Unlimited. To reach the Leif Everson Observatory
and Stonecipher Astronomy Center, use the Utah Street Entrance. If
skies are clear, call 746-5896 for a recorded message announcing
whether the observatory will be open.
Many of the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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