Monarchs flying

Our family has not been able to just get away together for over a year, so we took this past Monday and Tuesday to go to Michoacan, Mexico to visit the famous monarch butterfly sanctuary.
The story of these insects is incredible. Both Faith and I had seen them growing up in Mentor, Ohio all the time. I guess that I just figured that they would die in the fall/winter from the cold and then in the spring their eggs would hatch and then they would "come out again." Little did we know that they fly all the way from Canada/Great Lakes/Northern USA regions all the way down here to Michoacan. The place that we went to visit was only 25 minutes from where Morgan has been starting a new church in Zitacuaro.
When you arrive at the bottom of the mountain, there are many local men and boys with their horses, eager to earn about 10 dollars for taking visitors to the top of the mountain. The picture is of a rather easy part of the trail, but most of it is not easy by any means. It is mostly steep uphill and with many many rocks. Believe me, after 1 1/2 hours of riding up that mountain, I could hardly walk. When arriving at an elevation of 10,400 feet above sea level, we dismounted from the horses and walked another 300 yards or so upward. There we saw the incredible sight of the monarchs, all bunched up in pine and fir trees.





From the picture, it appears that the tree just has some sort of nest, but those are all monarch butterflies. Each Monarch is approximately the weight of a paper clip and with all of those monarchs, it is absolutely amazing how much each of the pine boughs are bent down toward the ground. Some of the men said that it is not unusual for a big branch to break and send a whole cluster of thousands of Monarchs crashing to the ground.















It takes about 3 or 4 minutes in direct sunlight for the Monarchs to be warm enough to fly--they warm up through their wings. The sun kept coming out for several minutes and then it would go behind the clouds again just when the butterflies would start to fly around again. That would cause them to all land and wait for the sun again. This went on for about an hour and a half off and on and we really thought that we wouldn't get to see them really flying all over the place. We prayed and the Lord brought the sun out again to stay out for about 1/2 hour. That was really an incredible thing to see. (See below for several other videos.)


When we were ready to leave, a man mentioned to us that up above there were even more butterflies so Faith and I with Matthew hiked up another 200 yards and were greeted by thousands more. The dark branches are from a giant fir tree and those dark spots are not squirrel's nests but all Monarchs. One of the videos further down the page shows just a cloud of monarchs flying around. The sound is not water or wind--it is the sound of millions of Monarch butterflies flapping their wings. Whoever would have thought that they made so much noise. They even were friendly little fellows (and gals.)













The incredible thing is that the Monarchs will mate here in Michoacan, Mexico and all the males will then die. The females will head north and make it as far as Texas where they will lay their eggs and die. Once the full metamorphosis is completed, the Monarchs will head north again and make it to the middle section of the USA, where they will again lay their eggs and die. After this metamorphosis is complete, the butterflies will head north again and make it to the Northern USA and Canada. The process is completed once more there. In the fall, the fourth generation from Mexico will head south and make it all the way to Mexico again. There is no explanation as to why the generations that head north all live for only 1 or 2 months, and then the generation that heads south, makes it all the way to Mexico and lives a total of 7 months. But we know that our Great Creator has a perfect plan and reason. These beautiful little insects have been fascinating to learn about this week. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament definitely showeth His handiwork.

















In this video, you can see a little bit of how high we were. The monarchs are about 10,400 feet above sea level here. They need to be in the sun for about 3 or 4 minutes to warm their wings up and then they all start flying. There were several times where the sun would peak out for about 2 or 3 minutes and a few would fly, but then the sun would hide again behind the clouds. Toward the end of this video, you can see a little bit of the pine tree and clumps of monarchs hanging on the branches. That's where they all hang out until they warm up. I will try to get more pictures posted so that you can see other aspects of it.