I was at the end of a work day after running from meeting to meeting as usual when I got a text from a co-worker and friend who sits on a higher floor than me telling me I had to come upstairs to see the "monarchs".
Turns out the little guys were migrating right over the Getty Center, thousands (millions?) of them! I can't even describe how awesome it was. We work at the Research Institute which is a semi-circle shaped building and their path took them through the garden from the south and right up over the middle of the semi-circle where I was standing. I could hear the flutter of their little wings. Heaven.
I stood just communing with them for a while, took some videos and then I walked around campus tracing their path and trying to find some that had landed because they seemed too small to me to be monarchs. They were on a mission so not many were dilly dallying, but I was able to spot a few resting so I could see that they were actually Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui).
So why did this happen this year and not in the past 13 years I've been here (at least never that I'd heard of or seen)? According to Arthur M. Shapiro, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis in this New York Times article:
"Substantial rainfall in the deserts near the Mexican border, where the North American painted ladies lay their eggs, is the reason for the unusually large swarms. The rain caused plants to thrive, giving the painted lady caterpillars plenty of food to fuel their transformation."
The last swarm like this was in 2005 and the superbloom of wildflowers this year likely attracted them with a steady and abundant food source. More info and videos from other Angelenos at Newsweek.
I didn't get any shots of them in stillness this day, but I'd seen them before. Here's another one of my photos of one so you can see what they look like.
I saw the butterflies for another week or so - not in the numbers I'd seen on that first evening, but still enough to notice them. Very cool thing to experience right in the middle of this big city.
Turns out the little guys were migrating right over the Getty Center, thousands (millions?) of them! I can't even describe how awesome it was. We work at the Research Institute which is a semi-circle shaped building and their path took them through the garden from the south and right up over the middle of the semi-circle where I was standing. I could hear the flutter of their little wings. Heaven.
I stood just communing with them for a while, took some videos and then I walked around campus tracing their path and trying to find some that had landed because they seemed too small to me to be monarchs. They were on a mission so not many were dilly dallying, but I was able to spot a few resting so I could see that they were actually Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui).
So why did this happen this year and not in the past 13 years I've been here (at least never that I'd heard of or seen)? According to Arthur M. Shapiro, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis in this New York Times article:
"Substantial rainfall in the deserts near the Mexican border, where the North American painted ladies lay their eggs, is the reason for the unusually large swarms. The rain caused plants to thrive, giving the painted lady caterpillars plenty of food to fuel their transformation."
The last swarm like this was in 2005 and the superbloom of wildflowers this year likely attracted them with a steady and abundant food source. More info and videos from other Angelenos at Newsweek.
I didn't get any shots of them in stillness this day, but I'd seen them before. Here's another one of my photos of one so you can see what they look like.
I saw the butterflies for another week or so - not in the numbers I'd seen on that first evening, but still enough to notice them. Very cool thing to experience right in the middle of this big city.
Comments
Post a Comment