The Butterfly Festival was held in the grassy glade between Lake Nokomis and the Nokomis Naturescape/Monarch Waystation.
When we arrived, we immediately spotted a tagged butterfly that will hopefully be found in Mexico and reported to the Monarch Watch group. If it is found in another region and reported, it will also help the scientific study as it will show the route that the butterfly was following on it's fall migration. Optimus thought the tagged butterfly was cool and all that, but what he really wanted was to try and tag one himself.
[You can search for MGA 502 here.]We joined the line of hopeful taggers and unfortunately were one too many people back, as the Monarch Lab had the little girl in front of us put their last tag on. The rest of us were given the informational lecture about why the tagging was being done, how to tell the difference between a female and a male butterfly (this one is a male) and how to hold one without hurting it.
Pointing out male characteristics. . .
We were then entrusted with the male monarch pictured above once he was snug in his "sleeping bag" along with two trays of monarch caterpillars to release on our milkweed plants back at the house.
We headed over to the stage, where a circle of expectant children and their camera inundated adults were ignoring an Anishinabe speaker debating whether or not she should have come to this festival to perform sacred rights of her people with such an inattentive audience. . . she had eventually decided to come when a Monarch flew past the window she was sitting in front of while trying to decide.
she locked onto Optimus after we joined the circle (since he was listening) and asked him if he was going to have children. In his typical precise manner, he said "I'm not sure yet, but quite possibly." Which got her laughing, and the rest of the nearby crowd listening and she told us about our water and the importance of it for our future generations and for the future generations of butterflies.
Then she and her fellow tribeswomen, sang a song to the earth and we released our little sleeping bag bound friend into the blue summer sky with his friends to begin their two thousand mile journey to Mexico. It was awesome. A spiral of orange and black dissipating with the breeze.
When the song ended the circle dissipated in a similar manner with people moving off to paddle the lake, get some gelato, or learn more about these beautiful creatures they were here in this clearing to celebrate. The boy and I walked over to the mudball table so he could produce three mudballs of seed to take back and plant, thus creating more butterfly habitat in our yard. He made three, one of butterfly weed, one of swamp milkweed and another of whorled milkweed. He moved from the pile of topsoil to the manure completely unfazed by the knowledge of the common name for manure, working the two into a cohesive ball in his hand, walked over to the volunteer manning the spray bottle for a few sprays of water to give the ball some cling and chose the seed to work into his ball of humus.
Completed balls were wrapped in wax paper and tied with twine alongside the tag identifying the seed within.
Photos of Milkweed Varities
Once his hands were clean we signed up to volunteer in the Nokomis Naturescape, ate gelato and headed home to release caterpillars and plant milkweed.
The caterpillars were placed on the leaves of our common milkweed that was a prolific member of our various gardens at the new house. They wandered around for a bit and started eating. Success!
The front yard has been envisioned as a home for two large rain gardens, slated for installation next spring sometime, so it was there, in a clump of other wildflowers, that Optimus planted his mudballs.
We even labeled them with our saved Popsicle sticks from the summer. : )
