THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608030534
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 55 lines
So how does the monarch butterfly merit such a kingly name?
Why, it has rich royal colors of orange and black.
And it has a sure-fire way of repelling birds that would devour it.
It feeds on a kind of milkweed so toxic that when a bird eats a monarch, the bird throws up.
That certainly gets a bird's attention. It isn't apt to try it again.
In a Monarch Butterfly Festival on Aug. 18 will be a video in which a blue jay does just that.
Over eons, most birds have learned they'd best not mess with the monarch. Don't dast touch the king.
Other more palatable butterflies, such as the viceroy, mimic the monarch's colors to avoid being eaten.
All this lore came from Julia Bristow, founder of the Virginia Butterfly Society, which is sponsoring the Butterfly Festival at the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
The Center is on Diamond Springs Road off Northampton Boulevard, just over the Norfolk line in Virginia Beach.
Among imaginative features, guests may browse in a butterfly garden designed by horticulturist Holly Cruser, co-chairman of the Festival with Kimberly Barclift.
Twelve master gardeners from Virginia Beach help maintain the garden that offers plants on which butterflies feed and lay eggs.
In a daylong plant sale, visitors may discuss with Mark Schneider, the society's president, and with landscape designer Brian O'Neil, how to plant and tend the varieties that attract butterflies, grace on the wing.
Another diversion, for children, is a puppet monarch butterfly with a wing-spread of 16 feet and a body 8 feet long.
Three people, holding poles, animate the winged giant that was fabricated in Hampton by volunteers with the Puppet Arts Center of Virginia.
The arts center's leader, Helen Spaetzel, said that its butterfly would be on display all day and lead one or more parades about the grounds.
The butterfly society's members plan to craft pre-cut wings and antennae from pipe cleaners, with which to costume children for mock migrations of monarchs from Canada to Mexico.
Three experts will show illustrated slides and answer questions about wayward monarchs - Teta Kain, 11 a.m.; Maurice Jackson, 1 p.m.; and Dr. Richard Mills of Virginia Commonwealth University, 3 p.m.
In an educational section, Dan Nicolay and Bill Shealy will display specimens of monarchs as well as their mimics. Bonnie and Don Denault will have caterpillar cages.
The fun is free and is open to the public, and to any butterflies happening by. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Monarch Butterfly by CNB