The annual Monarch Festival at St. Marks NWR was a success this year!
There were some concerns that that the monarchs might not show in significant numbers.
The monarchs did not disappoint us and appeared on schedule for the festival although fewer appeared than in previous years.
As you may know, the monarch population has been on a downward spiral due to an number of factors including bad weather, diminished habitat, insecticides, and (possibly) GMO crops.
Public awareness of the plight of the monarchs is increased by events such as the St. Marks Monarch Festival where people visit educational exhibits and even get to watch a researcher tag monarchs.
Visitors learned about food plants for butterfly caterpillars and nectaring plants for adult butterflies.
After learning about the threats to monarchs many people now plant milkweeds in small backyard plots and on vacant lands to provide food for the monarch caterpillars.
Nine days after the festival my wife and I returned to the refuge to take some photographs and we got to see the monarchs again.
We saw, photographed, and reported the sighting of two tagged monarchs.
If you see a live tagged monarch and can photograph the tag without harming the butterfly please do so and report the sighting to the website listed on the tag.
Here are a few of the photographs we took.
More photographs of St. Marks NWR can be found here.
Jim