The Orchard is a natural home of milkweed, the larval host plant for monarchs. The only place female monarchs lay eggs is the underside of milkweed leaves. The trio soon planted a flower garden with Monarch-attractive flowers to fuel the annual monarch migration to over-winter in Mexico. They trained the orchard field crew to preserve the milkweed and the store staff to collect the eggs and nurture them through the amazing life cycle of egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.
The butterfly dries out from its chrysalis birth, tests its new wings and flies away. Those born in September, generally the 6th generation of the year, fly all the way to Mexico, more than 1,500 miles from the Orchard, where they spend the winter. Hunter introduced us to Monarch Watch where we were trained in the art of tagging the migrating butterflies. Six of the hundreds the Orchard has tagged over the years have been found in Mexico at the migration site.
However, the number of Monarchs through the Orchard has decreased significantly over the first 25 years. That increases our determination to be a monarch friendly stop on the monarch life cycle map.
Our monarch butterfly preservation project was featured in Blue Ridge Country Magazine, in an article by naturalist and Orchard volunteer Elizabeth Hunter. Please take a moment and read the article, “Saving the Good Stuff”.
Learn more about monarch butterflies.
Milkweed
Milkweed, the larval plant for the monarch, is plentiful at The Orchard as are the monarchs. Unlike some other species of butterflies, monarchs have only one larval plant, so they depend on milkweed for survival. In areas where milkweed is scarce, monarchs are too. Unfortunately, the wild milkweed plant is frequently mowed down when development projects begin. We encourage you to plant milkweed around your home or property and to remind others to do the same. We are happy to share milkweed plants and seeds from our grounds to help others contribute to preserving this speciesInformational Videos
Postings
I measured monarch heart rates after human handling. Here's what I found...
Greetings everyone,I hope you are safe and well during these crazy times. Today, I'd like to tell you about a new project that was just published in the Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society, authored by yours truly! This is a project I have been working on for the past couple of years, in stages, and I'm excited to finally see it come to fruition. Warning, this post is long, and contains lots of info, so don't try to skim it! Also, if you don't want to hear my blathering about the paper and
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27.Mar.2020
I study monarchs for a living. I no longer pay attention to the winter colony data. Here's why.
Hi everyone,The annual estimate of the winter colony size for the eastern monarch population was just released by officials from WWF Mexico, and this has had everyone talking - or at least, in between talking about covid-19! I've gotten more than a few emails and Facebook correspondence about the latest monarch numbers. Here's my take, for those who wish to hear it. The way I phrased that last sentence was no accident. I am aware that the topic of monarchs, and their conservation, is emotionally
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17.Mar.2020
Monarchs at the center of legal drama over land in Ontario - more preludes of things to come...
Hello everyone,I'm extremely busy with projects in the lab these days, both with monarchs and my other study subjects, but I had to fire off a short post about some recent happenings north of the border. There is something very interesting going on up there that we should all be paying attention to, since it seems like this is going to happen a lot if the monarchs become listed on the endangered species list. That decision by the USFWS is still pending.I briefly touched on this topic in a
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11.Mar.2020