Pre-fall Monarch sighting ... a worn and tattered Monarch nectaring on a native Beggar’s-tick wildflower along Lighthouse Road at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge near Tallahassee, Florida. Monarchs are long-distance migratory butterflies. They migrate both north and south like birds do. But, unlike birds, individual butterflies dont complete migration both ways. It is their great-grandchildren that end up back at the starting point. In the fall, Monarchs in the north gather and begin to move south to overwinter in the Sierra Madre mountains in central Mexico where they live in fir forests at high altitudes. Monarch migration back to the north in the spring, the original butterfly dies along the way, but the offspring it leaves behind continues on to the north where the cycle will start again in the fall. There are population of Monarchs in Florida that dont migrate. Visit facebook/RogueEyePhotography for more wildlife images from Floridas Big Bend Region and beyond. (Nikon 7100 w/Nikon 70-300mm lens, 1/400, f/5.6, 200 ISO, focal length 300) Read more at butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Danaus-plexippus
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:37:26 +0000
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