One of the most amazing wildlife trips in North America is made on small wings every year. Butterflies travel hundreds, even thousands of miles, seeking warmer climate, food and breeding sites. Their migrations are perhaps no noisier than those of birds or whales, but they are equally wonderful.
The most popular migrant is the monarch butterfly. Every year in the fall, millions of monarchs abandon Canada and the north of the United States and fly south. Most of them go to the mountain forests in central Mexico where they camp over the winter nesting on trees. Kingfish along the coast of California are usually found to be moving west of the Rocky Mountains. The most interesting part of this migration is that not one of these butterflies finishes the entire cycle of year. The flying monarchs in the fall die very many years older than summer monarchs. Those who live through the winter, start moving north in spring, and lay eggs on their way. Their children go on.
It is not only monarchs that are on the move. Dramatic migrations are also characteristics of painted ladies. Magnificent numbers of them fly about the western part of the United States in certain years, and one beholding this scene suddenly will see streams of orange and black butterflies flying over his head. Such movements tend to rely on rainfall and the bloom of desert wildflowers.
A number of other species have shorter annual migrations. When it gets cold, red admirals and cloudless sulphurs and question mark butterflies usually fly south and come back in the spring. Their paths cannot be predicted as exactly as the paths of monarchs, yet they demonstrate the intensity of insect reaction to change of the seasons.
Researchers still work on the navigation of butterflies and how they are so precise. The sun, internal body clocks and even magnetic field of the earth seem to be used by the monarchs. They may access places that they have never been to despite their minute size.
Environmental challenges are also brought out in these migrations. Loss of habitat, pesticides, drought and climate change may decrease the flowers and host plants required by butterflies. Monarch caterpillars are milkweed feeders making any decrease in the milkweed to have a direct impact on their populations.
Individuals can contribute by planting native flowers, planting milkweed where it makes sense and using less chemical in gardens. A small patch of habitat can be a source of food and shelter on a long journey.
North American butterflies demonstrate that power does not necessarily have big bodies. It comes sometimes on bright wings, and flies without a noise with the seasons.