Saturday, June 18, 2016
The 6th annual butterfly program at South Fork Nature Center was attended by about 65 interested people. It included dressing children as butterflies to review insect anatomy, learning about and observing the life stages of 8 species of local butterflies, and releasing 8 adult butterflies and about 50 Monarch eggs and caterpillars on their milkweed host plants.

During the segment about Monarch butterflies, 18 people from the audience were given butterfly weed seedlings to take home and plant in their yards.

A highlight of the event happened at the very end when a Pipevine Swallowtail adult broke its chrysalis open and crawled to a spot for wing expansion and drying. It always feels like such a privilege to witness the beginning of the adult stage of a butterfly’s life.
Ruth Andre