Winging It
Why do we find things in nature beautiful? Bright colors? Dainty grace? Awe? It’s probably different for each of us, but I know I’m not alone in my delight at the monarch butterfly. With its wide orange-and-black wings fringed in white speckles, the monarch lurches around our Adirondack fields and gardens as if it’s not quite sure where to go first. But come near the butterfly, you’ll see it flee in expert loops and spirals, as quick as the breezes that carry it. At the end of the summer, our Eastern monarchs will head south to mountains in central Mexico. There they roost together in huge drapes until the following spring, when they fly back to their summer homes to breed.
I’ve always been a nature geek. Mom taught a pond-life class at the local botanical garden and published a cover article about the Canadian zoologist Fred Urquhart, who was recruiting volunteers for what’s now called a “citizen scientist” monarch-tagging program of individual butterflies during their fall migration. I needed no encouragement from Mom to send away for the monarch-tagging kit, which included tiny numbered stickers that you gently pressed on one of the monarch’s wings before letting it go.
