Berkeley's Bounty of Butterflies: Photo

Photo: Monarch butterflies clustered in foliage at Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. Courtesy Elaine Miller Bond

Written by Autumn Johnson and Bea Karnes (Patch Editors)

Bay Area photographer and East Bay native Elaine Bond recently snapped a remarkable photo in Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. It shows a large cluster of migrating Monarch butterflies.

Monarchs are the only known butterfly species that migrates, like birds, to warmer climates in the winter. Butterflies that are west of the Rockies have traditionally migrated to California’s Central Coast--most notably to Pacific Grove’s Monarch Grove Sanctuary, Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz and the North Beach Campground in Pismo Beach. The butterflies congregate in eucalyptus trees for their nectar, because the trees introduced from Australia flower in winter.

The butterflies roused Bond’s curiosity, who investigated why the insects were in Berkeley,

“Mia Monroe—volunteer with The Xerces Society and coordinator of a citizen-science monarch monitoring program, the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count—told me that only time will tell whether the monarchs will end up using the trees in Aquatic Park as a temporary resting place (autumnal site) before moving onto a more protected winter refuge, or whether these butterflies will use the “new” Berkeley site throughout the whole season as an ‘overwintering site.’”

Monarch butterflies migrate as many as 2,000 miles each way, traveling 100miles per day. They have been observed as high as 10,000 feet. An interesting tidbit about the migrating butterflies--several life cycles pass between each year’s migration, so none of the migrating butterflies have ever before made the journey.