What was everyone looking at?
The monarch butterflies!
We were in Santa Cruz! We went to see the monarch butterflies, who winter here, in the eucalyptus forest.
Shh… be very quiet as you walk into the forest.
We saw the butterflies through a telescope. My camera didn't have enough zoom to capture them, but you can see clusters of them hanging from the branches. Those dark clusters are actually monarchs, all clinging together.
Believe it or not, there are actually some butterflies in these photos. You can see little spots of color here and there… those are the monarchs.
We had two 8-year old girls with us, our granddaughter and her best friend:
Then we walked over to the beach:
The rocks were inhabited by pelicans. I have never seen so many pelicans in one place before.
Putting our shoes back on after walking on the beach:
Mom's friend is teasing her…
Finally, we had lunch at a place on the beach. The next day we flew home, back to winter!
If you want to read more about monarch butterflies and their migration, you could read a book called Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a novel, but it contains a lot of research about monarchs. I learned a lot from reading it.
3 comments:
Enjoyed your photos. We don't see many butterflies where I live, and yet there were so many when I was small, particularly on the Lantana hedges where I grew up. I've read that this is because of increasing use of insecticides.
Some schools here are establishing butterfly gardens using specific plants to encourage them - your post reminds me to plant more myself!
Butterfly gardens are popular here, too, Pam. I agree that the use of insecticides is having in effect… probably on bees, frogs and other creatures as well as butterflies. It's sad.
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