Releasing Monarch Butterflies

The butterfly garden

My neighbor has planted a beautiful butterfly garden in his back yard. He has many plants that attract a variety of butterflies that are native to our area. Among these plants are a couple different varieties of milk weed, which the monarch butterflies use both for food and to lay their eggs. My neighbor explained how the number of monarch butterflies has decreased tremendously in the wild and he would like to do his part to help them thrive and rebuild their numbers. He started raising a few monarch butterflies in his home and releasing them into the wild they are ready.

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The releasing of the monarchs

On the day the butterflies were ready to be released I made sure I had my camera (Nikon D5100) ready. My neighbor had 4 monarch butterflies to release. A couple of them flew off high into the trees right away. One hung around the garden for a bit going from one plant to the next before flying off like the other two. The last one however seemed to want to stick around. The butterfly wouldn’t leave my neighbors finger. He eventually got it to crawl onto one of the milkweed plants but it still wouldn’t fly. We weren’t sure if it wasn’t able to fly, or simply wasn’t in the mood to take off. We stuck around and kept an eye on the last butterfly for quite some time. It eventually after sitting in one place for well over half an hour flew a short distance to another plant, sat for a moment… then took off flying high off into the trees.The event had now concluded. The little monarch that we were all so concerned about now seemed to be fine and, I got many great pictures and memories from the experience.

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