Monarchs are coming

Sitting on the deck the other afternoon I noticed a caterpillar chowing down on a leaf on our Butterfly plant. Putting two and two together I figured out that this "bug " is actually the start of a Monarch butterfly. I looked it up on the net and I was right The the article also stated that their worst enemy is a wasp. I remembered that last year I saw a wasp attack this type of caterpillar and suck all the juices out of it. All that was left was the skin drooped over the stem of the plant it was on. After our backyard visitor visitor finished eating a massive amount of leaves it will develop its cocoon and start the transformation into the end product of becoming a Monarch.  

I read further that it takes 5 generations of this butterfly to then develop into a remarkable specimen that will end up traveling south and eventually crossing over the Andes mountains in South America before eating once again. It will then have a date or two with other butterflies, then travel back to lay eggs before dying here in America.

Some time in the 80's I saw hundreds of thousands of them hanging off of pine trees on Highland in Carthage. Somewhere I have a photograph of them. The trees were completely covered with the pulsating wings of the butterflies with no green exposed....just a mass of orange and black. 

Plant butterfly bushes and perhaps you will be lucky enough to see a traveler in your yard.