Migrating Monarchs

Visitors are expected in the area in late August or early September. There may be hundreds of them and they will be hungry. But they won’t eat just anything. These visitors have very specific tastes and a group of Bella Vistans are getting ready for them.

Discover Bella Vista, the city’s Advertising and Promotion Commission, Benton Country Master Naturalists and Cooper Elementary School organized Butterflies Impossible, a welcoming committee for the monarch butterflies that stop in the area during their fall migration.

“Bella Vista has a wonderful natural world and the people who live in Bella Vista care about the natural environment,” Susan Kelly of Discover Bella Vista said. She teamed up with Tamara Schonauer, who teaches math and science at Cooper.

Although the school was closed due to the covid-19 virus, Schonauer recruited about 20 Cooper families to participate in the project.

Monarch butterflies need milkweed. It’s the only plant that female monarchs will lay eggs on and when the eggs mature, it’s the only plant the caterpillars that become butterflies will eat. As cities and towns spread out, there’s less milkweed growing naturally, so the Cooper volunteers will be growing it.

With the help of the Master Naturalists, a volunteer group that studies and protects the environment, the butterfly volunteers received milkweed seedlings and instructions on how to plant and grow them. They also received packets of seeds that will grow into butterfly attracting wildflowers.

While the volunteers care for their own butterfly gardens, they’ll be able to write about the experience and post photos on a website that will be dedicated to the project.

There are some monarchs in the area now, Kelly said, but in the fall, thousands will pass through on their way to their winter home in Mexico. The annual migration actually takes several generations to achieve. The butterflies that arrive in August will lay eggs on the milkweed plants.

The eggs are very small and laid one at a time, information supplied by the Master Naturalist explains. The eggs hatch within a few days and a caterpillar emerges. The caterpillar will only eat milkweed and after about two weeks, it finds a spot to attach to the plant and it becomes chrysalis. About ten days after that, the monarch butterfly emerges.

Bella Vista is a monarch city, Kelly said, so making it even more welcoming to the annual visitors just makes sense.

Lynn Atkins/The Weekly Vista Lucy Thomas (above) wore her butterfly sunglasses when she arrived to pick up milkweed plants and wildflower seeds. Her family is one of about 20 that participate in a project to help the migrating monarch butterflies this summer. A project sponsored by Discover Bella Vista and the Benton Country Master Naturalists kicked off with a car parade around the entrance of Cooper Elementary on Saturday. The participants were given milkweed plants and packets of flower seeds to plant at their home to attract and feed monarch butterflies.