Monarchs on the mountaintops

The monarch butterflies from north central USA and Canada migrate to Michoacan state in central Mexico to spend the winter on top of remote, almost inaccessible mountaintops, living in hibernation, clumped in tall oyamel fir trees. If you are in my age group and you didn’t know this, it’s not because your teachers were negligent. It’s because this wasn’t known to the wide world until 1976.  For more information, check out the discovery story and monarch migration discovery.

Back home in Wisconsin Matt has devoted himself to the preservation of monarch lives. He guards milkweed in the wild. And from the plants he harvests the butterfly eggs, no bigger than a sesame seed, then takes them home to foster them, about 150 per year. In the wild only 1 in 10 will survive to adulthood, so this is the equivalent of 1,500 wild eggs. All summer long, from the butterflies’ first arrival in Wisconsin around June 1 until the last babies fly away in October, Matt is collecting and washing milkweed leaves (food) and caring for his brood. He raises them in 3 foot tall net tents in the kitchen.

After each monarch hatches he protects it for 8 hours until its wings are strong and dry, and then he logs the date and sex of the baby, and sets it free.

Generations 1, 2 and 3 are born and live out their lives in the US and Canada. Generation 4 is the Methuselah generation. These late-fall babies rise up a mile into the atmosphere and migrate to Mexico, where they will hibernate until spring, mate, and THEN fly back to Texas. On autumn evenings you will find Matt on our deck, pointing southward, and telling them to FLY! (If the neighbors think this is odd, they have not said so.)

Once there in Michoacan the butterflies huddle in heavy masses on the Oyamel fir trees, so many monarchs that they bend the branches toward the ground. Incredible! How many are there, in a pound of butterflies?

Last year Deb got the chance to go see the butterflies in Michoacan, Mexico at the Sierra Chincua site. It was January, and the monarchs were mostly hibernating in the chilly overcast winter air. It was beautiful, but this year’s trip was much more exciting. On Valentine’s Day the butterflies were awakening, and love was in the air. Now they will breed, the males will die here, and some of the females have already started their long trek to Texas. All of this is jump-started by the warming air and sunshine, and the newly flowering bushes with nectar for the journey.

We set out at 4 AM on February 14th to catch a tour bus from Queretaro to Piedra Herrada in Michoacan, near Angangueo. It’s a 3 hour trip over unfamiliar mountainous terrain, so a tour bus is the best bet for most visitors. We were joined by our host Grace, and another US expat, young Eric. Our bus was among the first arrivals in the cool mountain air around 7:30 AM, and the local women were just opening their simple wood kitchen huts and stoking fires to start cooking breakfasts. We sat on folding chairs under a propped-up tarp and fueled up on strong traditional olla coffee (sweetened and flavored with cinnamon, usually served in an earthenware mug), and handmade blue corn tortillas filled with mild white cheese and stewed mushrooms and chicharron (pig skin.) The hot sauce was homemade and dangerously spicy. We were nicely warmed by the food and drink.

Afterwards Matt and Deb elected to mount up on horseback and ride most of the way up the mountain. Grace and Eric decided to walk all the way up. More visitors were arriving and the path up the mountain was filling up. The bus driver had given us each a blue disposable face mask, and now its need was apparent; the path was full of fine loose dust, and the horses and people were on the same path together, kicking up the silt and creating a significant cloud. Up on the horse the dust was bearable, but many of the walkers were holding their hands or scarves over their faces. I was very glad to have the horse, especially since the climb is steep and rocky, and remember you still need energy to climb down at the end.

After 50 minutes of riding the guides had us dismount about 15 minutes from the top and we proceeded on foot, climbing slowly at 10,500 feet of altitude, careful of rocks and ankle-turners at every step. Now it was about 10:30 AM and the air was warm and sunlit. We had seen butterflies soaring around us in twos and threes, but here there was an incredible sight: more butterflies than you could count, more than your mind could comprehend. We were kept behind a yellow tape line and cautioned to stay quiet and not disturb the scene, so I found myself laughing giddily in wonderment, but without sound. A silent dance of joy inside and out. I wiped tears of happiness out of the corners of my eyes. Strangers of all ages and many nations made eye contact and nodded at each other: yes I see it, you see it too, can you believe this? all without saying a word. And yet there was more: more hanging in huge clusters on the trees, more around the corner, more down the bend a ways. My mind reeled.

My brief video: Monarch butterflies in Michoacan

After the allotted time of 20-30 minutes we reluctantly headed down to the foot of the mountain. This was number one on our Places to See list, and it was everything we had hoped for. Afterwards I sat on a log far away from the people and just contemplated the beauty of this place. It will stay with me.