Planting Milkweed for butterflies

[Higgs Boson]

We have probably all been reading about the Monarch butterfly losing huge n umbers because losing habitat in their wintering place in Mexico. Would be awful if we drove yet another species -- one so gorgeous -- into near exti nction.

This plea from the Natural Resources Defense Council (one of THE best and m ost influential conservation groups -- think Robert Redford) asks us to hel p restore habitat by giving "Green Gifts" described in this URL:

Full information about the wintering places of these fragile beauties for p opulations East and West of the Rockies, can be found on this URL:

ex.shtm

I didn't know that the Western population winters so close to me!

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Western North American Population

Monarchs living west of the Rocky Mountain range in North America overwinte r in California along the Pacific coast near Santa Cruz and San Diego. Here microclimatic conditions are very similar to that in central Mexico. Monar chs roost in eucalyptus, Monterey pines, and Monterey cypresses in Californ ia

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We who contribute to so many conservation groups are understandably overloa ded at this season when the solicitations come piling through the mail slot .

Just a thought...

HB

[songbird]

...re milkweed...

with so much of them being killed off by overspray from the fields around here i let them run around the edges of the gardens and ditches here when they show up.

we don't see monarch butterflies that often any longer, but at least if they do show up they have food.

songbird

[Higgs Boson]

Good on ya!

What do they eat? Something other than milkweed?

Your climate being, uh, "continental", when do they show up & when do they leave -- if you've had a chance to notice?

TIA

HB

[songbird]

Higgs Boson wrote: ...

i've only seen them on milkweed as larva. the adults feed on the nectar from several other plants that i've seen (alfalfa, clovers, butterfly weed) besides milkweed. probably others too...

never kept track of those things. some years i don't even know if they've been here or not. we have plentiful other butterflies which look similar at a distance so i might think monarch when it's really viceroy and vice-versa.

i'll try to note it this year when i first see them (if they arrive at all).

songbird