THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609270295
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: COASTAL JOURNAL
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: 96 lines
One day last week, no matter where I turned I saw big, striking orange and black monarch butterflies wafting across the sky.
It's monarch migrating time and that day I saw more of them than I've ever seen before at any time. Harriett Chassar called my attention to the phenomena first.
She phoned to say she had counted more than 100 of the creatures in her yard since early morning. Chassar lives in Lake Shores which is very close to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. She figured the butterflies were following the bridge-tunnel across the Bay and then using her yard as a way station to rest and refuel before heading on.
``They're coming in driblets, two or three at a time,'' she said. ``I've lived here since 1959 and I've never seen them come through like this.''
In fact, she had never seen them ``come through'' before. In the past a few monarchs was all she ever saw the whole summer.
The butterflies appeared to be 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.
``When they finish here, they fly right down the road south,'' she said.
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.''
And they were still coming when I got there at noon. Three were hanging on the ivy and another two were were on the butterfly bush.
As they fed, they walked around the long bloom working their wings up and down, revealing their pale striped underwings and then their bright orange tops. Their tiny bodies were striking, too, white, dotted with black. Sometimes they hung from a branch resting with their wings folded, looking like a Christmas tree ornament.
When one contingent flew off, I'd turn away, but before I knew it, more would land on the butterfly bush behind me.
The butterfly show didn't end when I left Chassar. I noticed monarch butterflies flying across the road all along Shore Drive. I stopped to buy some chrysanthemums at Atlantic Garden Center on Great Neck Road and what should be flitting around their blooms, but more monarch butterflies.
``This is a smorgasbord for them,'' said Lynda Houk, greenhouse manager.
The butterflies probably will be flying through in waves for a few weeks and the best spot to see them should be along the beach at Chesapeake Beach and near the Lynnhaven Inlet. Bonnie and Don Denault, members of the Butterfly Society of Virginia, went to Chic's Beach to observe them Tuesday morning.
``They were just coming across the Chesapeake Bay,'' Don Denault said. ``It's really nice.''
Louise Hill, animal curator at the Virginia Zoological Park in Norfolk, said migrating butterflies had been feeding in the butterfly garden at the zoo recently. ``I think it's a bumper crop this year,'' she said.
Monarchs are the only butterflies that make north and south migrations like birds do. Eastern monarchs make a long trek all the way to fir forests high in the Mexican mountains where they spend the winter.
Biologists believe that no one monarch makes the whole round trip. Instead the butterflies lay eggs along the migrating route and successive broods complete the trip.
If you see a bright yellow, black and white striped caterpillar, it's probably a monarch progeny. It will form a beautiful lime green chrysalis that looks like it has a ring of golden studs around the top.
Look for them in milkweed plants, like Queen Anne's lace, upon which the monarch caterpillar feeds. When the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly this time of year, the winged creature will fly off to give pleasure to others down its migration route.
My pleasure went on until the end of the day. When I arrived home, one was feeding on my butterfly bush and as I walked up on the porch, a monarch floated right by my head as if to greet me.
P.S. Ecotourism and how it relates to Back Bay and the North Landing River will be the topic of Back Bay Restoration Foundation's meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Creeds Ruritan Building. Ron Kuhlman with the city's Department of Convention and Visitor Development will speak. To find out more, call 412-4240.
THE ANNUAL PIG AND OYSTER ROAST, sponsored by the Old Coast Guard Station museum, will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Fort Story Club. Tickets are $20 ($25 at the door) and $5 for children, 6 to 12. Music by the Blues Exchange, door prizes and a menu that includes barbecued pork, oysters on the half shell, oyster stew and homemade hush puppies make it one of the best roasts in town. Call 422-1587 for information. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know
about Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555.
Enter category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
A monarch butterfly feeds on the blooms of a butterfly bush in
Harriett Chassar's back yard in the Lake Shores neighborhood.
Sometimes, it hung from a branch resting with its wings folded,
looking like a Christmas tree ornament. by CNB