The Monarch Butterflies are coming, and they need your help! Just as the sun sets and rises, the Monarch Butterflies are making their way back to overwinter in Mexico and California. This one-way journey was first recorded in 1820. The tiny butterflies can travel up to 3,000 miles and have been recorded flying up to 5.5 miles per hour.
Since 1993 there has been a rapid decline in monarch butterflies overwintering, with less than 2,000 butterflies counted in the 2020 Thanksgiving Count done by the Xerces Society. To say it a different way: for 29 years we have been destroying the Monarch Butterfly’s habitat. It’s time to make a change, for them and us.
Butterflies and moths serve as important keystone species in our ecosystem, next in importance after honey bees. In San Diego County alone there are 140 endangered species of butterflies, including the Quino Checkerspot Butterfly and Monarch Butterfly. It is impossible how to predict how these dwindling populations affect the other endangered species in the area including birds, animals, amphibians, and insects, some of which are: least Bell’s vireo, arroyo southwestern toad, Stephens’ kangaroo rats, San Diego fairy shrimp, Desert tortoise, Delhi Sands flower-loving fly and riparian brush rabbits.
The Monarch Butterfly was labeled endangered in the United States in 2021. The following year, they became internationally endangered. This decline has been recorded and observed now for 29 years, their survival depends on us! They need flowers that bloom in the fall and do not have poison. Wings of Change is proud to offer wildflower seeds to help order yours today! The discount code is ROOSTS. The monarch butterflies can travel up to 3,000 miles to get to their winter destinations, finally arriving along the coastline in California or Mexico. They need food for the long, arduous journey. The pollinators need food in the wide open spaces that have been destroyed by wildfire, development, and urban sprawl. Be the change, order wildflower seeds from our website to support the monarch migration. These seeds can be sown in your yard, or consider giving a gift back to the planet. We encourage you to buy wildflower seeds and intentionally sow them where you know they are needed: in barren, wide-open spaces.
The Monarch butterfly migration has already started in the northern parts of our continent: Canada and the northern United States. The butterflies will journey now through the end of November, arriving in waves to their overnight roosts. These roosts are in clusters of trees that the butterflies hang off in masses overnight. Several roosts are known hotspots in Florida, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, and Iowa.
In 1868, John Muir dubbed California the “Range of Light”. Unfortunately, many of the plants that he loved were labeled as weeds. Our founder Stephanie is ¼ Native American with forefathers whose roots date back to Mission San Diego de Alcala, 1763. She promotes plants that were a part of those tribal times, the missing threads of our unbalanced ecosystem. Hopefully, with continued education, we will once again live in a place our elders spoke of, where butterflies were so plentiful that they would come in clouds that could be touched, even sometimes landing upon you.
The Monarch Butterflies depend on flowers in bloom on the way back to their overwintering destinations. Wings of Change is proud to offer seeds and plants that will help support these beautiful butterflies. Order yours today.
Wings of Change is spreading the word about the importance of butterflies in the world, and you are invited to become the Wings of Change with us. We offer free education on butterflies and how they ultimately affect everything in our environment. We are sharing our nonprofit organization’s vision of using native plant species to create an ecological landscape that restores the natural cycles broken through conventional landscape design and large-scale commercial agriculture. By incorporating native plant species we are fulfilling our main mission of providing critical habitat for butterflies, moths, and pollinators.
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