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M. Fegler
Welcome first time visitors and returning readers. PX3 hopes to see all of you at Calvert Brewing Company Trivia Night on May 15, 2019 from 7 pm - 9 pm. Get to know PX3 members, have a great craft brew, win prizes with your keen trivia skills. PX3 Trivia will consist of three categories: Maryland Native Bees, the Honey Bee, & Your Garden Potential. Join us and test your knowledge, learn fun facts and have some really good beer. For the first 15 days of May 2019 PX3 will post blogs that we will then draw trivia questions from. We welcome you to visit daily and take a look! Thanks to Calvert Brewing Company for partnering with us for this fun event.
Como esta? Feliz de Cinco de Mayo! A beautiful day for a beautiful culture. Did you know that PX3 hosts trips to Mexico to share the monarch wintering grounds with our trip participants? In 2019 PX3 hosted the pilot trip to explore the beautiful oyamel fir stands of Mexico. Please feel welcome to go back and read to blog post on our wonderful trip. At trivia night we will bring the incredible book photographer John Glowczwski compiled for us to share.
The monarch butterfly is an extraordinary species. The North American monarch butterfly is not the only migratory butterfly, but one of the furthest traveling; eastern populations flying in many cases 3000 miles from eastern North America to central Mexico to spend winter. This phenomenon replays each year in March when movement around the oyamel fir, the trees monarchs winter in, appears increasingly anxious. This ‘waking’ generation of monarchs has now survived blustery southerly fall winds, diapause, and winter on 12 isolated Mexican mountain tops; hence often referred to as the ‘super generation’ (fall-spring). The average lifespan of northerly progressing monarchs (spring-fall) is actually several generations living only two to six weeks each. The ‘super generation’ lives upwards towards nine months with the weight of the species survival on the backs of fire like wings. After a long and costly winter the journey north begins, diapause ends, eggs are laid and the circle of life continues.
Piece of milkweed cake, right? More like, insert any Princess Bride quote about impossible odds here. The monarch migration can justifiably be compared to the Fire Swamps of sand pits, fire geysers, and ROUSes (rodents of unusual size), but in the likeliness that I am the only one obsessed with the 80’s flick I will describe the ever repeating challenges of so many species.
Having unique or uncommon characteristics also requires unique or uncommon resources and given it is becoming more common that resources are uncommon for common species I feel like the challenges of the uncommon monarch story are unfortunately common; enough said.
All the more reason to celebrate the remarkable story of the monarch and the amazing efforts they inspire that benefit all wildlife monarchs share habitat with.