Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) began their annual fall migration around late-August. These butterflies are the great-great-grandchildren of the monarchs that migrated to Mexico last fall.
You can help monarchs by providing food (nectar) and keeping those areas protected:
- Turn a portion of your lawn into a wildflower meadow—plant milkweed or other native wildflowers.
- Delay mowing areas with milkweed until later in the fall.
- Avoid using herbicides—they kill all life-stages of monarchs (egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult).
- Report sightings of adults online. View a map of the sightings so far this year.
Don’t know when their migration peaks in your area? Check out this chart.
Have you seen a small green pod about an inch-long? This is a monarch caterpillar after it enters the pupa stage and is now in a chrysalis. If you see one, try not to disturb it.
They will find a safe place — often under a milkweed leaf — to enter this stage in their development, which lasts about 9-14 days. Sometimes they will pupate hanging under eaves, decks, other garden plants, or even on window screens.
Photo of monarch after it emerged from a chrysalis by Tonya Whitford Condon.
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