Saw my first Monarch butterfly.....it landed on my hanging plant!!!

[a kennedy]

Wish I could show you the photo but I don't know how to get my photos from my camera to my ipad.....and stupid me, I didn't take the photo WITH my ipad. Dah. it was so graceful how it almost floated from flower to flower. Beautiful.

[In_The_Wind]

1. That's wonderful news!

What flowers do you have blooming now?

[cyberswede]

2. I saw one in my backyard yesterday

I've been worried, since they seem to be threatened by climate change (haven't thousands of them died down in Mexico?).

Anyway, it was beautiful and made me smile.

[femmocrat]

3. I have seen a couple this year.

Or maybe it is the same one over and over? I haven't seen one in years before this. I see it on the balsam plants and butterfly bushes but none on the milkweed yet.

This article says they are coming back: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/monarch-butterfly-population-set-to-rise-this-year-1.2744262

[a kennedy]

4. and then there's this article, suggesting federal protection for them.....

Monarch Butterflies Need Federal Protection to Keep Them From Disappearing.....

As monarch butterflies are beginning their epic migration from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico for the winter, concerns about the drastic rate at which they’re disappearing from the landscape have led environmental and health organizations to petition the government for federal protection.

This week, the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Xerces Society and monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed a legal petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking protection for monarchs under the Endangered Species Act.

“Monarchs are in a deadly free fall and the threats they face are now so large in scale that Endangered Species Act protection is needed sooner rather than later, while there is still time to reverse the severe decline in the heart of their range,” Brower, who has been studying the species since 1954, said in a statement.

According to the petitioners, monarchs have declined by a shocking 90 percent in less than 20 years and “may have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat ― an area about the size of Texas ― including nearly a third of their summer breeding grounds.” Last winter, the numbers of these iconic butterflies reached a record low, raising worries about their future survival.

According to the Xerces Society, in the 1990s, an estimated one billion monarchs made their way from the north to the oyamel fir forests where they spend their winters sheltered by the trees, while another million were believed to spend the winter at sites in California. Now, scientists believe there are only 33 million left.

Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, likened the loss to losing every living person in the United States except those in Florida and Ohio.

http://www.care2.com/causes/monarch-butterflies-need-federal-protection-to-keep-them-from-disappearing.html

[ashling]

5. Its been about 15 years

ago we had a place in the country in central Texas. I think it was in November when they cam through - just a few at first, but they would rest on the limbs of a pecan tree. Made the barren limb look like it was in full foliage there were so many.

[a kennedy]

6. About 1985 or so.....our birch tree was so full of monarch butterflies that we

Couldn't see the tree, just the outline of black and orange butterflies....it was the only time we saw that. AWESOME, and soooooooooooo beautiful.