THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996 TAG: 9609260353
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 67 lines
Harriett Chassar counted more than 100 monarch butterflies wafting through her Lakes Shores yard in a single morning this week as the orange and black creatures winged their way south for the winter.
Her Virginia Beach neighborhood is close to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the route the big colorful monarchs appear to follow as they cross the Bay on their southern migration. Chassar figured the butterflies were using her yard as a way station to rest and refuel before traveling on.
``When they finish here, they fly right down the road south,'' Chassar said.
``They were coming in driblets, two or three at a time,'' she went on. ``I've lived here since 1959, and I've never seen them come through like this.''
Monarchs are the only butterflies that make north and south migrations like birds, according to butterfly experts.
Eastern monarchs make the trek all the way to Mexico, where they winter in fir forests high in the mountains, according to the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies. But biologists believe that no monarch makes the whole round trip. Instead, they lay eggs along the way and successive broods finish up the migration.
The butterflies apparently are attracted to Chassar's butterfly bushes, her impatiens, the blooms on the ivy covering a big tree and even the bright yellow ``Dead End'' sign out by the road.
Chassar first noticed the migration around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. She had gone out in her yard to feed her cat.
``I'm walking around and I look up. `My word, look at that!' '' she recounted. ``And here they came, floating in. I stood and watched as they floated in over the house, over the tree and into the yard.''
Chassar was still counting at noon. Although no one else has reported as many butterflies as Chassar, monarchs are making their presence known all across the northern end of the beach.
Bonnie and Don Denault, members of the Butterfly Society of Virginia, went to Chesapeake Beach to observe the migration Tuesday. ``They were just coming across the Chesapeake Bay,'' Don Denault said. ``It's really nice.''
The couple raise monarchs in a butterfly aviary in their back yard.
The hungry, tired critters also found sustenance at Atlantic Garden Center on Great Neck Road, where they flitted among the chrysanthemums and remaining summer annuals and perennials. ``This is a smorgasbord for them,'' said greenhouse manager Lynda Houk.
The butterflies will probably be flying through in waves for a few weeks. The best spot to see them should be along Shore Drive and the Chesapeake Bay beach.
Stan Nicolay, a butterfly society member who has collected butterflies all over the world, has been noticing the monarch migration all week.
Although monarchs come from as far away as Canada, he believes this wave of butterflies is from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania because they look so fresh, with brilliantly colored and untattered wings.
``The monarch is the only true migrating butterfly that we've got,'' Nicolay said, ``and the last week has really been quite a show.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARY REID BARROW\The Virginian-Pilot
A monarch rests on one of Harriett Chessar's butterfly bushes at her
Virginia Beach home.
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[Monarch Butterflys
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KEYWORDS: MONARCH BUTTERFLY by CNB