Goldenrods grow wild and in abundance in the Northeast, in particular along or just behind
many beaches. Monarch butterflies either have a radar for these locations or have the capability
of spotting the plants. In any case, coming from the North, sailing in from the Atlantic Ocean,
like they did here, they seem to inherently know where to land and fill up their tanks for the
next stage of the long journey South. What a daily feast it was, as waves and waves of them
kept on coming, from the middle of September to past the middle of October 2007...
But nectar from flowers and plants is not the only type of nutrition Monarchs find along the
shore lines. They also need salts and minerals and where better to harvest these than where
salt water had covered pebbles and sand a little while earlier, before the tide went into retreat. Whatever the harvest, miniscule elements in all likelihood, I would have to work with much
more specialized equipment to bring into evidence pieces of the microscopic puzzle. And
already, while closely observing the intriguing insects and their behavior, people at the beach
kept questioning me as to what I was focusing on in the sand with my rather big lens... I often
wonder how it is that others don’t see what I see. At the bottom of this page are 2 examples...