The Last Monarch....

Yesterday the last monarch butterfly of the Garden season emerged. It wasn't the best day to emerge as a new butterfly - cool, windy, rainy, and in the evening more rain and wind and even a tornado watch. Needless to say, I left the new metamorphosed creature in the enclosure in the Martha Crone Visitor Shelter overnight.

This morning I came in to work and saw the butterfly still hanging from it's chrysalis. It was in the 50s this morning which is a bit too chilly for an insect to be moving about with ease. So I carefully placed the butterfly in a bug box and placed it on the table closest to the fireplace. I just wanted it to warm up after a chilly night in the Shelter.

Monarchs are truly amazing. Well, all butterflies are really. Think about this: they start their lives as tiny caterpillars hatched out of a tiny white egg. Their first meal? Their egg! What next? The milkweed leaves the egg was deposited on. They eat and eat and grow and grow shedding their skin several times. The milkweed leaves they eat are slightly toxic but they are immune. Anything that eats them makes the predator sick (birds throw up if they eat a monarch). Predators learn not to eat these guys.

Then something amazing happens! They begin to wander - go for "walkies". They find a leaf and hang themselves upside down in the "J" shape. They molt their skin one more time and form a delicate green chysalis with tiny gold dots around the edge. Beautiful!!! And they remain in that form for 10 to 14 days. During that time, they completely rearrange themselves! The caterpillar is no longer a caterpillar. It takes its caterpillar parts and assembles a completely new creature! After 10 to 14 days, the green chysalis becomes clear and one can see that inside is something that is black and orange. A butterfly is inside!!! Suddenly the chrysalis breaks open and this incredible new being emerges and spreads its wings for the time! Truly amazing!

Check out this video I took a while ago of a monarch caterpillar in J-shape and a monarch butterfly emerging!



Around noon today I brought the newly emerged butterfly up to the prairie. It was still overcast and still a little cool. I was hoping it would be warmer up there on the hill and that the little insect would quickly find the flowers and food it needed to survive. I was worried about this one. It was lathargic and still, only flapping it wings every once in a while. I opened the container and let the butterfly crawl onto my warm finger. It stayed there, clinging to my fingertip. It opened and closed its wings a few times and I was hopeful it would take off. It didn't. Soon I moved over to the edge of the clearing under the oak tree and placed the butterfly on a flower. It reluctantly and awkwardly left my finger and gripped the tiny white flowers. Hmmm...



I was concerned, yes, but understood. The weather has changed dramatically in the last two weeks. At the end of August it was hot, humid and sunny. Suddenly September arrived and so did autumn. And this week the temperatures have not gotten above 70 and we shouldn't expect to see those days again this year. One of the factors that trigger migration not only for monarch butterflies but for birds and other migrators (including dragonflies!) is temperature. Another is the length of day. Now as 7pm approaches dusk is upon us and the day is ending. In the morning the sky does not lighten until nearly 7am. Next week is the equinox and then we will begin to have less than 12 hours of daylight until March. And now the blooms of our flowers are nearly all done and the plants are beginning to senesce. Living things see and feel these changes and know that autumn is here and winter is not far behind. The leaves have already begun to change and fall is here in the Twin Cities. It's time for creatures to migrate or stock up on supplies or get ready to hibernate. They know.

If this monarch I released today survives, it will fly to Mexico. MEXICO!! 3,000 miles!!! What an incredible journey! Flying over prairies, lakes, rivers, and deserts to Mexico. Amazing! You can follow their journey by visiting Journey North From this page you can follow not only monarchs but other migrating animals too. Check back in the spring to find out when they will be returning to your state. And then you will get another season to enjoy the monarchs! The monarch who make here in the spring are actually the 3rd or 4th generation from the original butterflies who flew down to Mexico.



So how do they know where to go? They may use the Earth's magnetic fields or the position of the Sun or both or other factors. Who knows? No one really. Once thye arrive in Mexico, they live in the mountains high above sea level. They cluster together for warmth and use the humid air to stay moist. Unfortunately, there is significant habitat loss not only in Mexico but here in the United States as well. Monarchs have fewer places to find food, lay eggs, and overwinter. There are organzations out there doing their part to raise money and awareness to the plight of the monarchs (the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has a Monarch Festival in September). And just raising monarch caterpillars is a fun, rewarding way to help the population along. Those little caterpillars will be protected from predators while they are young in your care and hopefully will make it to maturity to lay some eggs and perhaps migrate to Mexico!

I'm not sure if my monarch flew off today. I'd like to think he did. I'd like to think that the little orange and black miracle found some flowers, powered up and took off in a southerly direction. Or at least became nourishing food for a bird...

For more information on monarchs, their migration and more check out: http://www.fs.fed.us/monarchbutterfly/migration/index.shtml

A Windy Day Brings A Garden Visitor...

Last week we turned another calendar page and it seemed as though Mother Nature felt it was time for a change as well. "Bring in autumn!", she seemed to shout! September 1st was a perfect, gorgeous day with pleasant temperatures, low humidity and lots of sunshine. What a pleasure to just be alive after so much heat and humidity in August! But by Friday, the weather turned cooler - tempertures that here in the Twin Cities have not seen since late spring. The air was brisk in the 60s and the wind gusted through the trees. Suddenly the seasons changed from hot, sticky summer to cool, windy autumn. I love autumn, but according to my calendar the equinox is not until September 23rd.

It was cool enough out there in the wind on Friday that I decided to build a fire in the Shelter at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. The wind was tossing the tree tops around like seaweed along the ocean shore. I went about my morning opening the Shelter and filling the bird feeders including the suet feeder in the hopes the pileated woodpecker would return that day. I reached out for the screen door handle to go inside and get some bird seed only to quickly pull my hand back in surprise. There right on the handle was a dragonfly taking shelter from the wind and cold on the porch and probably feeling the heat coming inside. I laughed at the funny noise that came out of me and then gently let the insect crawl onto my finger. I placed it on the porch bench and went inside to grab a plastic terrerium. I decided to bring the dragonfly inside to warm up and get out of the wind.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered my dragonfly friend was a Common Green Darner and a female. These dragonflies are one of the larger ones around and also one of the most common, found all over the United States and southern Canada. These are the ones that are seen along ponds and lakes a few feet about the surface of the water, but they can also be seen farther away from water in the uplands. They are strong fliers (they are good size) and I have seen them on the high cliffs along Lake Superior battling the lakeshore breezes patrolling for mosquitoes. Early autumn is a great time to see green darners inland.

Male green darners are have green thorax (the middle section of the body between the head and abdomen) and a blue abdomen with a black stripe going down the middle. Females also have a green thorax, but their abdomen is a rusty, brick-red color though sometimes it looks violet. Both sexes have large compound eyes that are a dull green color with a bull's-eye pattern on the forehead.









On this chilly, windy day my female darner was looking stunned. I put her gently in the plastic "bug box" and brought her inside. She flitted a few times, but not much. I continued to fill the bird feeders while keeping and eye on her.

Common Green Darners are truly amazing (as are all Odonatas if you ask me!). There are some green darners that will migrate in search of food. We are not talking great distances like the monarch butterfly (the most famous of the migrating insects), but they will still leave their "home" and travel many miles in search of good eats. What do they eat? Thankfully they eat those pesky biting insects (I love watching them patrol!), but they also eat other, smaller dragonflies and some have been seen eating hummingbirds!!

I finished filling the feeders and checked in on my dragonfly friend. She was making an awful lot of noise - flitting about and bumping into the sides and top of her enclosure. I knew I needed to let her go and her warming up was only temporary. But I told myself, if she can fly into Lake Superior shoreline head winds and if she can hunt down a hummingbird for dinner, I think she can handle a windy, cool fall-like day. So I brought the "bug box" out onto the porch of the Shelter and opened the lid carefully. A swirling gust of chilled air rushed down the slopes leading into the bottom of the Garden where the Shelter sits. In a flash, she was sucked out of the container and rode the wind up into the Ohio buckeyes and headed along the ridge where the woodlands meets the prairie in the Garden. I hoped that she would find refuge from the wind and chill somewhere in the conifers that line the woods surrounding the prairie and that she made it through the cool nights to follow.

I'd like to think she did. I'd like to think that she began flying south to a sheltered pond out of the wind. That she deposited her eggs just below the surface of the water so another generation of green darners could patrol the skies eating mosquitoes and biting flies for us.