Monarch on the Bloom

Yesterday a friend and I went for a long walk.  We wandered over to the gardens in the neighboring town.  There were flowers everywhere I turned my head and in a distracting burst of color.  But my eye caught this black and orange Northern Monarch butterfly who was quietly living her life on a pumpkin-colored zinnia.  A beauty alight on a bloom.  She paid me no mind as she was busy prepping for her long migration to Mexico.  Once at her southern destination she will hunker down on an Oyamel fir tree possibly 80 feet tall, packed in for protection and warmth with ten thousand of her relatives where they will roost all winter long. As spring comes and the sun warms her wings to about 50 degrees, she will awaken and head north.  However, none of the butterflies, including this one, that begin the three thousand mile journey from the south to the north survive.  It takes four or five generations of butterflies to make that complete trip north to once again rest and sip nectar on a flower in the gardens of Maine.  You should be awed by that.   I am as I contemplate our yearly migration south along with this wise and elegant monarch butterfly who looks like a tiny ballerina with oversized wings.