Monarch Waystation

As the vacationers of the animal world make their yearly migrations this autumn, one species has a new place to visit on their way south.  The Nature Center has a newly certified conservation station for the farthest flying butterflies in the world.

Monarch butterflies weigh less than a postage stamp yet travel up to three thousand miles.  The last generation of each season journeys from the Eastern U.S. and Canada to Mexico.  This trip is crucial to their survival and they need places to get fuel along the way.  The Nature Center’s newly certified Monarch Waystation offers adult monarchs plants with nectar for feeding and milkweed plants for the caterpillars to eat.

Monarch Waystations are a means for citizens to help monarchs.  Anyone with a little land can build one of these gardens to provide food for this iconic species. Monarchwatch.org has all the information needed to create a Waystation and you can visit ours in front of the log cabin.  We had 35 monarch caterpillars in our Waystation this year that grew to adulthood.  The caterpillars grow approximately 2,700 times their original weight before making a chrysalis!  Once our monarchs emerged as adults, they headed toward Mexico.  Bon voyage!