Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage

Robert Michael Pyle set out to answer three questions about monarch butterflies:

1. How do they physically do the migrating that they do?


2. Do they navigate or follow the wind? and lastly,


3. Why do some monarchs end up in Mexico and others in California.

Much like Where Bigfoot Walks, Chasing Monarchs is all about chasing something elusive, something nearly impossible to track. Like Bigfoot, Chasing Monarchs is awash with lush descriptions of the landscapes Pyle traverses; this time British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Nevada and California with a little dip into Mexico. I find it amazing that Pyle was able to tag butterflies without hurting them! I just wish his book included photographs.

This is exactly what the title says. A standard map of migrating monarchs shows the eastern monarchs going to Mexico, and the western monarchs going to California. The author set out to follow western monarchs, starting in Washington, according to a set of rules: follow a monarch as far as it can be seen, when it disappears keep going in the same direction until another monarch appears, repeat. Of course the rules are incomplete. What if there are two monarchs going in different directions? What if there are zero monarchs for hundreds of miles? A bit of tweaking kept the spirit of the enterprise. He ended up in Mexico, indicating that the monarchs are not adhering to theoretical purity. Along the way, well, he went here, he went there, show more he met this naturalist friend, he met that naturalist friend, he saw this butterfly, he saw that butterfly. Not much structure or context; what I learned has been stated in the previous sentence. Well, also that monarchs are sparse; there is a map of his 20 sightings over 7 states.

(read 6 Jul 2013) show less

Media Type:Book. SUBJECT: 1. Moths 2. Butterflies 3. Migration 4. Monarch butterflies 5. Monarch butterfly 6. Literary