By Julie Thibodeaux    

A monarch sipping on your sunflower may seem carefree but it harbors ambitious plans. This time of year, when they stop for a drink, they’re refueling for a long haul to Mexico.    

Monarchs with their tiger-striped orange and black wings have long been the stars of the butterfly world. They’re also its marathon flyers. Each fall, they fly from Canada to central Mexico during their annual migration. The hardy travelers arriving in Texas this month may have already flown as far as 1,500 miles, with 1,000 miles to go on their annual trip.  “They’re pouring through right now,” said Mike Quinn, director for the Texas Monarch Watch program based in Austin. “You’ll have stragglers till the next cold front.”      Quinn said blooming flowers, the monarch’s filling stations, are more scarce in Texas this year. Drought and forest fires have marred the landscape, making it tough for the monarchs who should be fattening up in preparation for hibernation right now.  (photo courtesy of Mke Quinn)  

In Dallas, John Watts, entomologist for the Texas Discovery Gardens, said this year butterfly gardens are providing critical waystations for monarchs.  "If they’re finding places with nectar producing flowers, they’re staying there a lot longer to bulk up on their nectar,” said Watts, who reported seeing hundreds of monarchs in the Texas Discovery Gardens, during the first week of October.
   

The monarch population has been steadily declining over the past 15 years. The decline is due to habitat loss in their breeding sites in Canada and the U.S., as well as their wintering sites in Mexico, which are still plagued by illegal logging.  Monarch advocates encourage people to create monarch rest stops, with nectar producing flowers, including milkweed, which they need to lay their eggs on in the spring.      Besides wildflowers, the butterflies enjoy slurping on pentas, verbena, purple coneflowers and lantana. In a pinch, they’ll also drink honeydew deposited from aphids found on pecan tree leaves.  “If you have nectar producing plants, water them so they’ll produce more nectar,” said Quinn. “Keep the native plants in your garden lush.”  (Photo Courtesy of Mike Quinn)
   

The monarchs launch their annual migration from Canada in August, riding wind currents across the Great Plains. All North American monarchs east of the Rockies funnel through Texas on their way to the Michoacan mountains, about 80 miles west of Mexico City.  There, millions of monarchs roost in fir trees at about a dozen sites, where they’ll stay until February.   In Texas, some arrive solo, while others appear in mass during peak migration during the first two weeks in October.  During the last few days in September, 500 were reported at Possum Kingdom Lake and thousands in Abilene, where their major flyway runs west of I-35. Hundreds were seen flying through Plano on Oct. 2.    

During the State Fair, Watts will be tagging and releasing the butterflies twice a day in front of the Texas Discovery Gardens at 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. through Oct. 23. [texasdiscoverygardens.org]   The city of Grapevine will also be releasing tagged butterflies during its annual Butterfly Flutterby festival held Oct. 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in downtown Grapevine. The event kicks off with a butterfly costume parade for children and pets, which will be lining up at the corner of Wall and Jenkins at 9:30 a.m. [grapevinetexasusa.com.] (Photo courtesy of the Grapevine Convention and Vistors Bureau)

The tags placed on the butterflies at both events are official Monarch Watch tags, provided by the University of Kansas. The numbered tags will be recovered at the monarchs wintering sites in Mexico and will add to the data being gathered about monarch migration.  According to Watts, the monarchs can withstand being captured and tagged and are not deterred on their monumental flight. Their wings are made to withstand even being pecked at by birds.      “They’re tougher than regular butterflies,” said Watts.   For more information, see monarchwatch.org.  (Photo by Paul Sutherland courtesy of Monarch Watch)


Julie Thibodeaux is former writer and editor with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Contact her at julie@jthibodeaux.com