Experience on the Texas Gulf coast by Myra
While the following is not a NZ sighting, I would like to share my experiences with monarchs in Texas, USA.
During the 1970’s I moved to the Texas Gulf coast. One day in September (Autumn, or Fall, in the Northern hemisphere) I was with a friend driving through a long flat plains landscape away for any town. I brought her attention to what I thought was a huge flock of birds. We stopped and watched. I remarked they were flying very strangely for birds. When they got closer we saw they were butterflies! Monarchs to be exact. Millions and millions of them, swaying and swooping down across the plains. We stayed there for 2 hours fascinated, as they swarmed on and around us…. then on….
When I got home I discovered all the bushes and trees were covered in them. Scientists and botanists were in town, awaiting the annual migration. Many butterflies are tagged and tracked each year.
I discovered the Monarchs had gathered from as far away as Canada, had travelled across huge mountain ranges, from thousands of miles.
They had taken many months and many generations of butterflies to arrive at their destination.. As the days grew colder in Canada, they started migrating Southward, following the caterpillar food supply, which is mainly ragweed. They laid their eggs and died, and the young became butterflies and started again on the Southward journey. They repeated this in many stages until by the time they arrived in Texas, as many as 4 generations had evolved.
On the Texas coast they wait for the right weather, then take off from Padre Island, close to my home, and flew straight across the open sea. Right across the Gulf of Mexico, to over-winter in a particular forest in Mexico.
There they huddle together and keep warm, until Spring where they make the journey back. They lay eggs in the warm Texas, and the offspring repeats the journey, laying eggs, dieing and the young continuing on Northward.. travels back to the exact place, even the very field where the ancestors hatched the summer before, and the cycle is complete.
This was sight I shall never forget.. I would say from then on, I was hooked on monarchs!
Best wishes Myra
