Let The Monarchs Feast

However, the monarchs we spot at this time of year — around the Pine Barrens, and in Montauk, at spots on the Hampton Bays oceanfront and along Long Beach in Noyac, and on Napeague — they are actually local natives, having been born and grown up on the undersides of local milkweed plants, whose leaves they eat ravenously in their youth. They have an extremely arduous months-long journey ahead. They are destined to power south this fall at a rate of perhaps 100 miles per day, all on the strength of little more than air current and paper-thin wings.

And food.Monarch caterpillars are completely dependent on milkweed plants, whose “milk” deflects predators, and adult monarch butterflies completely depend on nectar from plants like goldenrod that they fuel up on before heading south. An inadequate supply of either milkweed or nectar can reduce the number of monarchs that make it safely to Mexico and other overwintering sites, and thus interfere with the complicated and precarious life cycle of Danaus plexippus.Anecdotally, there seem to be a fair number of monarchs on the South Fork this summer, but a dramatic decline in their numbers to the south was reported consistently for some two decades. Habitat loss and insecticide use all along their route have been blamed for that, and habitat loss and herbicides have similarly been blamed for a diminishment of the milkweed and flowers on which their survival depends.

Many of us celebrate the appearance each summer of beautiful monarchs; just imagine how beautiful a patch of milkweed or goldenrod must look, in turn, to the monarchs. The least we can do is to maintain and nurture the native plants that make their long journey possible — that is, the least we could do is send them off with a good meal or two.