Do you have a stand of pecan trees, or live oaks? Is it near a creek or the river? Are there tall bushy white flowers nearby, or yellow daisies, or really any wildflowers? Is it October?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may get a call from Jenny: can she please check out your pecan bottom? She would bet that a thousand or more Monarch butterflies have found themselves on your land, their home for a day or two on their epic flight to Mexico. She would like to catch a few and tag them.
This sounds crazy, but it’s true. There are people right here in Menard County that help study the migration patterns of Monarch butterflies. They traipse out to likely roosting spots in October, the month that most of the travelling lepidoptera find themselves in the Texas Hill Country. Jenny, and others that she enlists, snag the butterflies in nets, affix a tiny round sticker on the backside of their wings, and send them on their way to the highlands of Mexico where all Monarchs spend the winter. It is there that scientists pick up the trail and study the migration patterns.
Plenty of landowners along the San Saba, the Llano, and various creeks and streams in the area have raised an eyebrow to Jenny’s request. Only one has dismissed her outright, and she understands this reaction: gates are locked for a reason. But those who have agreed to let her in have been happy they did.
They have found an unexpected appreciation for a species that they have never really spent lots of time thinking about at all. They have been given an on-sight lesson in biology, in meteorology, in the unexpected importance of something called milkweed. They have seen their own land in a new light—a place where these silent, delicate creatures can nectar and rest and store up the reserves to fly another thousand miles to their ultimate destination.
So if this sixty-something year old lady carrying butterfly nets and a fistful of stickers asks you if she can tag butterflies in your bottomland, say yes. Join her. Let her show you the silent beauty of these persistent creatures as they find nourishment and a moment’s rest in the same land that you love.