Helping Monarchs - Part 1

In my last post, 'Butterfly Ballet', I took a lighthearted look at the Monarch butterflies in my garden.  Now, I'll take a more somber look at their situation.  Monarchs are in trouble.  Their numbers have declined dramatically in recent years-- due to reduced habitat for the host plant of their caterpillar stage, pesticides, parasites, and other causes.  

It sounds grim, I know.  But, on the bright side, there are lots of people who are helping them, too!

From the federal government to grassroots supporters, people are coming to the aid of Monarchs.

In this article I cut from a newspaper last year, it states that Monarchs had experienced a 90% decline in population, with the lowest recorded numbers occurring in 2013-14.  The US Fish and Wildlife Service was considering putting them on the endangered species list.  Just like when our Eastern Bluebirds were in serious trouble, people are stepping up to help.

I picked up the brochure in the photo above at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ.  They have a large butterfly garden out in front of their building, and inside they have this:

As they find eggs or caterpillars on their milkweed plants, they bring them inside to protect and raise, then they tag and release them.  

I'm not going to go into the details of the Monarch life cycle, but if you'd like to read about it at one of the best websites I've seen, you can click here.

Now, I want to tell you about my own Monarch story.  Our family has loved them for a long time.  When my girls were young, they enjoyed raising a caterpillar or two and releasing the butterflies after they emerged from their chrysalises.

There's a butterfly / dolphin enthusiast!

And a nice handling method!

I had not raised any caterpillars for long time, preferring to let nature take its course.  This year I changed my mind - because Monarchs are in trouble and particularly because some of ours were in trouble!

While my husband had done a good deed for me and staked off the best of our local milkweed colony, there were still milkweeds scattered here and there in the hayfields which were destined to be mowed for mushroom hay.

Thank you, honey.

So, I kept checking and found several Monarch caterpillars in the 'danger zone'.  

The easiest way to find them is to look for chewed leaves or frass (a fancy way of saying caterpillar poo).

You could also find eggs, but they are very tiny so you'd have to look carefully.  The 'cats' can vary in size, depending on which 'instar' they are in (they go thru 5).

I brought them back and set them up in a special habitat... basically providing them with milkweed to eat and keeping the container clean.

They will eventually look for a place to pupate and attach themselves by a silken mat.  In the next photo, you can see the one on the right working on this, and the other one already in the pupa stage.

Then, the 'cat' will hang in what is called the "J position" for awhile.

Here's another viewpoint:

I was really glad I brought these caterpillars in, because before all the above took place, this happened...

Those caterpillars were on milkweed that was right in the front and center of that photo!

If you are interested in learning more about how you can help Monarchs, here is a link to the Fish and Wildlife Service webpage that has lots of information.  There are also several Facebook groups; where those 'grassroots' people I wrote about earlier share information on raising and helping Monarchs.

While I was not lucky enough to see a caterpillar go into a pupa... I did get to watch one emerge as a butterfly! Of course, I took lots of photos to share with you...  so 'stay-tuned' for my next post!

PS - If you want some Common Milkweed seed to grow your own Monarch garden, let me know... we have lots!

 Though I'll have to harvest some before it all flies away!

Milkweeds - More than for Monarchs

On my walk this morning I had one main thing in mind.  I was checking common milkweed plants for Monarch eggs or caterpillars.

The first thing I found were these two Red Milkweed Beetles.

They live on milkweed and are quite safe there although with their bright red and black coloring they really stand out on the green leaves.   That's because eating the milkweed makes them poisonous!

They weren't what I was looking for, but they were entertaining nevertheless!  Click here for an interesting article about them.

So also was the next insect I found, which shall remain nameless unless someone can identify it and leave a comment.  I found it fascinating that its antennae are 3 times as long as its body!  You can see them if you look carefully at the next photo.

The next critter didn't stand out - in fact, it looks a lot like a leaf with legs.  

If it was on a plant with smaller leaves than the common milkweed, it would blend in with its surroundings even better.  See if you can find it in the next photo.

Milkweed do seem to attract a wide variety of bugs... or maybe it's just that I was looking at them more carefully than other plants, trying to locate a Monarch caterpillar.  I'm hoping it's just too early this year but I have not seen a single Monarch butterfly here.  Have you?

When my girls were little, we would (usually easily) find a caterpillar or two and feed them milkweed leaves until they formed a chrysalis.   Then we would release them when they turned into butterflies.

We still have milkweed.  Even though the fields were mowed a few weeks ago, there is quite a bit left around the edges of the fields.

And where it was mowed off, it's already coming back up, with nice and tender shoots, for the caterpillars to eat if they just find it!

The ones that weren't cut down are forming their seed pods.

The fluffy stuff inside was collected during World War II for use in life jackets.  You can read an interesting article about 'the heroic milkweed' here.  I don't have a photo of the seed pods opening up, because they are still too green this year.  But several years ago I 'sketched' one in watercolor:

Milkweed actually has had a lot of uses over the years.  From food (young shoots that taste like asparagus when properly prepared and correctly identified - there is a similar-looking plant that is not edible!) and medicinal uses (the milky sap forms an instant bandage when it dries),  cordage made from its sturdy stems, to dyes which produce a variety of colors, and even Christmas tree ornaments!

My mom and I used to have a craft day each fall on the first day of deer season.  I had the day off from school and the men were all out hunting.  We often made things with natural materials like pine cones.  One year we made ornaments with dried milkweed pods.  We sprayed them with gold paint on the outside, lined the inside with glitter and added a small figurine.  These are 40+ years old and we still hang them on our tree each Christmas!

But I got a bit side-tracked there--  let's get back to today!  On around the path I went, checking milkweed plants.  

This one has a nice little bug swimming pool,  but no one is bathing right now:

Before I finished my walk, I found one more cute little insect.

Hopefully, one of these days soon, I'll spot a Monarch butterfly, eggs, or caterpillar.  I'll keep my eye out for them.  Let me know if you see any!