I’ve only witnessed the migration of monarch butterflies once in my life. The best known routes are to and from Mexico through the central and eastern United States. There’s a smaller population of monarchs that winters along the California coast, and that was the population we visited.
(Monarch butterfly migration routes, courtesy Iowa State University)
One of my coworkers became aware of a smaller group of monarchs were gathered in a eucalyptus grove in Santa Barbara, not far from our home at that time in Ventura County. We decided to make a family trip of it and went to explore this natural phenomenon on a nice winter’s day.
It was quite remarkable. As we entered the grove, we started seeing many aggregates of the butterflies, but nothing at all compared to how densely packed they were in the middle. It seemed the trees were growing butterflies.
Our kids were fascinated by “all the bugs”, and enjoyed it when the butterflies landed on them.
