Weather Features

Hot Weather Brings Monarchs To New England

BOSTON (WBZ) ― The heat wave was pretty miserable, but it had one pretty side effect -- Monarch butterflies arrived here in New England.

"They can only travel when it's warm enough," said Tia Pinney of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

The temperature needs to be 60 degrees or better, and thanks to the recent heat, the monarchs are back. "I found this butterfly yesterday at drumlin farm," said Pinney. "It is one of the first ones I've seen."

The second grade class at the Davis Elementary school now has a monarch sighting to report. They've been tracking their northward migration since they left Mexico several months ago. It's all part of a project called "Journey North."

"When it warmed up on Saturday, they showed up everywhere and the sightings are all over the place," said Pinney.

These sightings come from over 250,000 school kids like these who record the arrival of monarchs in their neighborhood, all in the name of science

"In March, maybe February, they leave Mexico and fly north," explained Pinney.

These monarchs only make it to the Gulf Coast. There lay their eggs and die. Their offspring then fly north -- following the warmer weather while dining on plants.

"Right now we are just getting our first wave in and they are laying eggs," said Pinney.

The grandchildren are a second wave in early July and produce yet another generation before those monarchs head back to Mexico.

"It's cool that they know how to get to the same place that their grandparents came from," said student Sema Arakelian.

What has been really exciting to them is to learn how they have this tracking device within that brings them to back to where they originated from, but it's their great grandchildren that are coming back.

Once the arrival has been recorded for science, the monarch is back on its journey.

You don't have to be a kid in school to track monarchs for Journey North. Anyone can do it.

The journey north project began in 1994, and its providing scientists with key data needed to understand how climate change affects the monarchs.

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