Monarchs Take Wing At Lake Katherine's Butterfly Festival

PALOS HEIGHTS, IL -- The monarch butterfly migration down to Mexico is one of nature’s most stunning spectacles. As the colorful butterfly prepares for its great fall journey in the wild, Lake Katherine Nature Center & Botanic Gardens in Palos Heights will once again open up its butterfly tents for hundreds of children and adults to enjoy. Four hundred butterflies will be released into two tents for the public to enjoy at this year’s Monarch Butterfly Festival at the on Sunday, Sept. 17th between 11 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.

The celebrated festival, now in its 24th year, will also feature face-painting, live animals, a children’s farm, an arts & crafts fair, children's crafts, scarecrow making, food & drink vendors and an education area in Lake Katherine’s newly refurbished herb garden. Tickets are $6 per person and free entry for children two and under. There will also be early ticket deals featured on Groupon.com the week before the festival. Festgoers will be able to park at Palos Heights City Hall, 7607 W. College Drive, and take a free shuttle to Lake Katherine or use additional parking facilities at 7350 West College Drive.

In the past 20 years the monarch population has dropped from a billion to 30 million largely because of habitat destruction. Monarch caterpillars feed and lay their eggs exclusively on milkweed, but the colorful flower is rapidly disappearing from the countryside due to the overuse of herbicides and decline of the native prairie.

As a city, Palos Heights has become increasingly active in helping the monarch butterfly sustain its numbers. Mayor Straz recently signed the National Wildlife Federation’s Mayor’s Monarch Pledge making a commitment to take at least three specific actions to help the butterfly. The city will begin by installing a new pollinator garden at city hall later this month with the help of Lake Katherine naturalists. It will include signage and flyers about the native plants included and information about how the community can replicate the project in their own backyards and businesses. Lake Katherine will also showcase a new consultancy service to help local companies provide native habitat for wildlife at the festival.

“Every year at the Monarch Butterfly Festival we highlight the flight of the monarchs and how important the butterfly is as a pollinator,” says Lake Katherine’s operation manager Gareth Blakesley. “This year the festival is more poignant than ever and we are proud of how our city is coming together to celebrate, protect and aid the monarch.”

Lake Katherine Nature Center and Botanic Gardens is located at 7402 W. Lake Katherine Drive, Palos Heights.

Source: Lake Katherine Nature Center and Botanic Gardens