As to the somewhat hyped demise of the monarch butterfly... Monarchs, monarchs everywhere.
Since August of 2007 I have seen as many as in previous good years, thousands of them. In parks,
meadows and gardens up and down the East Coast. I’ve seen them along beaches and rivers.
Swimming, I saw them fly playfully evasive maneuvers over our heads, tactics of survival. We even got
to spot a few over the Atlantic from a ferry connecting New London, CT with Block Island, RI...
Imagine the sensation of leaning against the rail of a fast moving ship a good few miles from land, and
to observe a monarch now and then, busy flapping, drifting, gliding, zipping up, dropping down, at
times almost skimming the waves. Perfect little masters of the elements, heading for who-knows-where,
but certainly South... Quite likely for Mexico, for this must be the one generation destined to make
the heroic journey to the few inherent wintering places well below where a severe frost could put their
survival in peril. No guarantee however, as we know from the way things can go during the occasional
winter freeze even as far as South of the border. Let alone the devastations from logging there...
(That was in 2007... By the middle of Oct. 2010, small waves of Monarchs were passing through again.
Plain easy gliders or stragglers from further North, who's to say..?)