Monarch Magic

Carol Peterson, a Madawaska resident, gave an informative and entertaining presentation about Monarch butterflies to members of the Madawaska Valley Horticultural Society on Feb. 15 2018. Peterson’s interest in butterflies began during childhood but metamorphosed into a full-fledged passion during her teaching career when she joined the Monarch Teacher Network. (Click HERE to visit monarchteacher.ca) As a trained Monarch enthusiast, she introduced a butterfly garden and Monarch study program to her Grade 4 class in Brighton, Ontario. Now retired from teaching, she continues to advocate on behalf of Monarchs and all butterflies from her home at McCauley Lake.

Peterson’s students learned that Monarch butterflies from Ontario take only one month to migrate a distance of 4,000 km to the mountains of Mexico. Whenever a Monarch butterfly would emerge from its chrysalis in the classroom, the excited children would break into a chant:

Gotta go

Gotta go

Gotta go to Mexico

In 2009 Peterson was one of only two Canadian teachers on a Monarch Teachers Network tour to the Monarch wintering grounds in Michoacan, Mexico. She showed slides from that trip during her talk to MV Horticultural Society which she called “The Magic of the Monarch: a story of Migration, Milkweed and Metamorphosis.” Peterson presented fascinating facts about Monarchs at all stages of their development, saying that swarms of Monarchs are surprisingly noisy in flight and described the sound of their wings as a “crisp clipping.”

She said that Monarchs fly up to 80 km per day at speeds ranging from 15 to 50 kph. In order to reach Mexico, they take advantage of thermals and fly as high as 2,000 m. She said no one has yet answered in full the question of how they know where to go, explaining that in the spring we see the “return” of the great-great-great-grandchildren of the Monarchs who migrated from Ontario to Mexico the previous fall.

In all species there are population cycles but 50 percent of the Monarch population was lost between 2012 and 2014. While those dramatic declines have slowed somewhat, Peterson says her interest in teaching people about Monarch butterflies remains urgent because in 2016 the Monarch butterfly was officially designated an Endangered Species.

She said the food source for Monarchs is the Milkweed plant. She handed out packets of Milkweed seeds to the audience and gave tips on how MV gardeners can protect and encourage Monarch butterflies:

• Avoid use of chemical fertilizers
• Encourage growth of Milkweed plants. Adult Monarchs lay their eggs under Milkweed leaves as it is the only food that the Monarch larva eats
• To introduce Milkweed to your garden, Peterson says it is easier and more successful to transplant an entire Milkweed plant (including the rhizome below the tap root) than to germinate seeds indoors
• Cultivate other butterfly-friendly plants
• Provide bird baths and boulders

Carol Peterson (L) with tulle-covered butterfly larva “tower”

Peterson has passed on her infectious love for these beautiful creatures to people of all ages. Her nieces (Jessica, 14, Annie, 11, and Charlotte, 9) picked up the butterfly bug from her when they spent the summer of 2009 at McCauley Lake. Madawaska Valley Horticultural Society members were charmed by an engaging YouTube video the girls wrote and produced about their summer of Monarch butterflies entitled “Butterfly Story.”  Click HERE for the two minute video; it is well worth viewing.

The Madawaska Valley Horticultural Society meets on the third Thursday of each month at the Opeongo Senior Centre in Barry’s Bay. On Mar. 15 Robbie Anderman will talk about his recently-published book “The Healing Trees: The Edible & Herbal Qualities of Northern Woodland Trees”