The Importance of Nature
May 24, 2024
Benefits of Planting Trees with Kids
May 30, 2024
If have not visited this site before, make a point of doing so with your child.
https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/441784
It provides updates, each year, on the incredible migration journey of the Monarch Butterfly.
In case you are not aware of it, the Monarch is pretty special. Each year they log some serious fly miles.
How many? The longest migration is about 1,800 miles, from the upper U.S. to the fir forests of Mexico. Monarchs can fly, during migration, upwards of eighty miles per day.
What makes this all the more incredible is this fact: many Monarchs only have a life span of about fourteen days. Very few Monarchs will actually make the entire migration flight, meaning second-and-third generation butterflies undertake the journey, instinctively knowing exactly where to go once they are born. And generation after generation, year after year, decade after decade, the Monarch take off from Mexico in the spring, go north, and in the fall reverse the trip, same flight pattern, the same pattern that has been flown all of those years, and seriously, you have to admit, Nature is pretty awesome.
Why do we care so much about the Monarch? A little research will answer that question, but we can tell you that the #1 threat to the Monarch population (and existence) is deforestation.
Would you like to help? Read up on the plants that Monarchs gravitate to. Grow a butterfly garden. And then get ready for the thrill, with your child, when a Monarch stops in your garden on their flight north or south.
Seriously, beyond cool!
