Monarch visiting
Now that we're having a dry spell mid-winter, and temperatures are in the low sixties, we're seeing a few monarch butterflies out and about.
This one flew around the garden and landed in our neighbor's tea tree, where it decided to rest and soak in the warmth of the sun. The two dots on its back wings are shadows from the "clubs" at the tip of the butterfly's antennae.
Apparently there's a year-round population that just stays in the Bay Area all year and doesn't migrate.
Citizen scientists play an important role by reporting monarch sightings to online websites that collect the data for scientists to study.
Here is a very interesting interview with information how to help our pollinators in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Included is a link to the Xerxes Society, a science-based nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.
