While visiting a flower farm the other day, I met up with this monarch butterfly for a moment. Such a lovely creature! It kindly posed for a photo before it flew off to another patch of flowers. Soon it will be headed off on a long journey south. And it reminded me of another monarch that fluttered around these parts, years ago, before migrating south.
Jim Gilbert, a man who lives in our little town, is a naturalist and former science teacher. About 50 years ago, he and a few student volunteers tagged monarch butterflies at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum as part of an extensive research project to figure out where the monarchs go in the winter. One of the monarchs Gilbert’s students tagged was later found in Mexico, about 2,000 miles away, by Canadian zoologist Fred A. Urquhart. This was a monumental discovery because prior to that, scientists were baffled by the mystery and had been specifically looking for answers for 40 years!
To learn more about the great monarch migration, I encourage reading the picture book The Mystery of the Monarchs by Barb Rosenstock and Erika Meza and watching the documentary film Flight of the Butterflies (2012) on Prime.
Another great picture book about the migration of monarchs is Home is Calling: The Journey of the Monarch Butterfly written by Katherine Pryor and beautifully illustrated by Ellie Peterson. And for young readers there’s Flight of the Butterflies by Roberta Edwards. It includes photographs, maps, and illustrations with more of a “science textbook” feel.
Starlight Writer 