Monarch Release

Went to the annual monarch butterfly tagging/release over the weekend at one of the local metro parks.

Kids spent the morning capturing the butterflies and learning about their migration and life-cycle. The climax was obviously when all the tagged butterflies were released late in the afternoon. The journey will take these beauties 1,749 miles from this location to their wintering grounds near Mexico City.

The odds that someone down there will find one of these tagged butterflies is literally a needle in the haystack. Over the thousands that have been released here during the last decade, only 11 have been retrieved.

and the last three images.

Some of these with the wife's Sony P&S, the rest with the Canon 30D + 28mm f/1.8


Safe journey.

Thanks for looking.

Nice pictures. I was wondering how they tagged them. Those stickers really stay on them??? I had a few of them come through my yard this year. I haven't seen one in years...I get very few butterflies. I guess I need to plant different plants.

That first shot is Great!

Very interesting. I didn't realize that butterflys were actually tagged. I like the look on the girl's face in the 4th photo. She looks completely mesmerized. Thanks for sharing.

I love the first shot also! And I like the antennae on the woman in the 3rd shot.

Thanks for looking, everyone, and taking the time to comment.

Toot - yeah those stickers don't look very adhesive. But apparently the monarch don't have fragile wings and their scales don't come off easily like other non-migratory butterflies. Still, the number of wing beats between here and there must be one awesomely large number. That along with the speed of their wingstroke must mean that stickers could be found everywhere along the way :p

Very interesting, I had no idea something like this was done. Thanks for the lesson. I agree that most be some strong super glue to last 1,700 miles.

Some of those Monarchs have already logged a few thousand miles just getting there to be tagged !
They started heading south from here about early August up to early September.
On one particularily stormy, breezy, windy day, I counted about 48 (that I actually spotted), in a 3 hour time span, passing through my back yard on thier journey to Mexico.
Amazing how this event occurs every year, and they don't even use GPS devices !
Thanks for those fine pics Loupey !
. . . only 11 out of thousands ? :thumbsup:

OT - thanks for looking. Yeah, I learned a lot too.

Rivman - you're absolutely right. The other morning as I sat out on our deck drinking my morning coffee, I saw 6 monarchs flying just above tree tops in the cool morning air. All flying due south.

The research group pays people in Mexico $5 for every tag they find. Still, finding a tagged one on a forest floor absolutely covered with dead and dying butterflies is a daunting task.