With a woosh of her net, Master Naturalist, Ellen Guiling, has captured another Monarch butterfly to be tagged and then sent on its migratory journey.
As per the Monarch Watch website: tagging information helps answer questions about the geographic origins of monarchs, the timing and pace of the migration, mortality during migration, the effects of wind and weather, and changes in geographic distribution of monarchs. Each year the information is collected and can be viewed at www.monarchwatch.org.
You may remember Starla found a tagged Monarch from Kansas who visited our garden in 2015.
We have many butterflies visiting The Raincatcher’s Garden and the reason goes back to the careful planning and planting of host and nectar plants for many different types of butterflies. Review the butterfly plant list in our Raincatcher’s Resources on the right of our front page and enjoy the delights of your own butterfly garden.
Pictures and video by Starla Willis
Haven’t the experts recommended pulling up the tropical milkweed pictured above, so that the Monarchs won’t lay eggs and just continue on their migration to Mexico? I had it in my yard in the fall of 2012 because I had bought it at the sale at Fair Park. I did have a Monarch lay eggs and I had at least 6-8 caterpillars thrive. I even had a Monarch emerge on November 10th! I was excited at the time, but I’m not sure what happened to that butterfly. The tropical milkweed didn’t come back the next spring and now I just have the regular milkweed that is supposed to die off and not make the Monarchs stick around the Dallas/Ft Worth area in the fall.
Yes, several experts have recommended cutting back tropical milkweed in the fall, but not everyone agrees. There was a recent article in the Dallas Morning News giving that advice, but others say this is only necessary from San Antonio and southward.
Hope you enjoyed the video!