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Monarch butterflies are back in Pacific Grove for the winter. Sunday, people from all walks of life came to witness the beautiful butterflies. "Pacific Grove calls itself Butterfly Town, USA,” says Natalie Johnston with the Pacific Grove National History Museum. This year is seen as a symbol of perseverance, especially how they were able to rebound from having zero of them back in 2020. Last year, they saw about 13,000 monarchs, and this year the current number sits at 11,171. "For four generations, they had good breeding conditions, and with good breeding conditions, they can produce remarkable number of butterflies,”...

MADISON, Wis. — While monarch butterflies and bees have been making headlines, the world is losing more bugs of all kinds to habitat loss, invasive species, pesticide use, and more human causes. You may have noticed that, for example, if you’re slapping more mosquitos away lately. “I have noticed that I haven’t been bitten like I have not had as many mosquito bites this year,” Lisa Briggs, a garden coach from The Bruce Company, said. That may seem like a relief over the summer, but hate to clip your wings — “while a lot of people think that’s a great...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as scientists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers. “It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.” The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.

Initial results are in and the western monarch butterfly is making a comeback. In California, researchers are seeing 50 times more monarchs at overwintering sites this year compared to last. "To have this many this year, is just, I'm jumping out of my skin excited," said Craig Corwin of Arroyo Grande. Corwin brought his camera to capture the butterflies in clusters and fluttering about. "There's nothing like it. It's just amazing," he said. There are more than 22,445 monarchs at the Pismo State Beach Butterfly Grove. "Last season, we saw just around 200 at our peak," said Danielle Bronson, State...

...From December 1 through March 1, the public is encouraged to report monarch sightings in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas using the partnership's online data portal at JourneyNorth.org/sightings. ...Last winter, volunteers from across the Southeast and Gulf states provided more than 5,800 observations of monarch butterflies.

The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History is doing its annual monarch butterfly count. They are seeing thousands more than last year. "So the importance of counting is to understand one what's happening with the population overall," said Stephanie Turcotte-Edenholl, the educational volunteer at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. Every year western monarchs are counted across the Western U.S. The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History counts the monarchs at the Butterfly Monarch Sanctuary, behind the Butterfly Grove Inn in Pacific Grove. On Thursday, Oct. 29th, the museum counted 9,544 monarchs. In 2020, the sanctuary saw zero monarchs....

They fly with such grace and beauty. Butterflies are backyard wonders of summer in Florida. They flutter through the air so fast we can barely glimpse them before they're gone. Now through the use of super slow-motion video photography, you will see them fly like never before. A variety of butterflies display their in-flight beauty as a GoPro7 camera shoots them in high definition at 240 frames per second. You will see Gulf Fritillary, Monarch, Zebra Longwing, and Giant Swallowtail butterflies up-close.

A visit to The Butterfly Place yesterday resulted in this memory of the trip. I love Joseph Blanchard's compositions. And I'm impressed at how well phone cameras work, as opposed to the big, clunky ones of the past.

The National Butterfly Center, in danger of losing access to most of its wildlife nature preserve along the Rio Grande, is asking a court to stop federal officials from building a border wall across its land. The North American Butterfly Association first sued more than a year ago after government officials allegedly cut down trees and cleared brush on its Texas property. The planned wall would cut the 100-acre property in two, with as much as 70 percent of the land inaccessible between the wall and the Rio Grande, Butterfly Center Executive Director Marianna Trevino Wright has told NPR.

President Trump is pushing for more money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The debate could come to a head as Congress nears a deadline to fund parts of the government. Some sections of the border already have a wall. And in many areas, building more wall means cutting through private property. In South Texas, NPR's Cristina Cala and Sam Gringlas visited a place where that conflict is already playing out. SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: We're just looking at dozens and dozens of these red and black butterflies. CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: Like a cloud of butterflies - just one...

Enter Israel, the UN, and brilliant politician Benjamin Netanyahu. In the traitorous wake of the UN’s recent vote to condemn Israeli families for daring to build houses in Israel, there’s been a lot of talk about the US cutting funding to the UN. Several Congressmen have led the charge, and it’s been refreshing to see. But we’ve been beaten to the punch – Israel just did it. And it’s sweet to behold

Both butterflies and moths have four stages of life – they go from the initial egg to a caterpillar, then to a cocoon and finally to a butterfly or moth. We often think that whatever comes out of the cocoon is always more beautiful than the caterpillar that made it, but in some cases, this is not the case. In these 19 pictures, you’ll see the transformation, and decide for yourself if you prefer the caterpillar or the butterfly/moth… Click on any of the images to see the transformation!

In North America: You can’t catch Islamic terrorists by refusing to name them, but with the right media propaganda, you can whip up sympathy for the Monarch butterfly The always charming but ever wily Kofi Annan got away with it first: had folks close their eyes and imagine butterflies rather than the rampages of Islamic terrorism which cannot be a clear and present danger to earthlings if it doesn’t exist in the first place. ‘Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a...

The Monarch Butterflies are threatened, no doubt about that. Well-meaning groups, like LMF are grassroots efforts to encourage gardeners to grow milkweed plants, the monarchs predominant food source. The crucial question though has not been asked: why is the milkweed plant rapidly disappearing? Some Ideas Some people think the use of genetically modified (GM) corn that is the source of the problem. They think that herbicides applied to GM corn prevent the growth of errant milkweed plants in corn fields. I don’t think so. The milkweed rate of growth is much less than that of corn and the monarchs would...

Butterflies in the Fukushima Region Plagued by “Genetic Damage” and “Severe Abnormalities” A study of the pale grass blue butterfly in the regions around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, site of the 2011 radiation disaster, has revealed that the insects are giving birth to mutants at an alarming rate. Indeed, the butterflies collected from younger generations have more abnormalities than butterflies born directly after the power plant began leaking radioactive particles into the environment. That means the genetic damage caused by the radiation leak has been inherited by subsequent generations. Above, you can see images taken from the study, published...

For one can never get enough Ted Kennedy. But more importantly, on Thoughts this week we have a tender story about butterfly babies and backyard habitats. Plus a story about a new computer malware that is particularly nasty. And of course, as we all need more of the wonderful Ted Kennedy in our lives, my tale of just how I shall explain the story of Ted Kennedy to my granddaughter. Much more.

There are thousands of varieties of the insect, their movements are fascinating and their population numbers are excellent indicators of the environment. They transform, within weeks, from squishy, accordion-like caterpillars to winged creatures whose pollination keeps wild plants and flowers alive. Some, like the famed Monarch, migrate thousands of miles with the seasons, while many may never travel more than 100 yards from where they were born. "There's a lot going for them," said Jeffrey Glassberg, president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association, which he runs out of an office in his Convent Station home. And with butterfly...

Of Moths and Men Moth-like Agencies Pose as Economic Butterflies Wayne Lusvardi - The Pasadena Pundit Let's see if you can make sense of the following confusing picture using examples drawn from Southern California but certainly replicated across the country. A New Obsolescent Reservoir? Earlier this month California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein proposed a $9.3 billion bond to build yet another new reservoir in Northern California to inconsistently "offset the climate change impacts of reduced snow pack and higher flood flows" and to finally route water around the Sacramento Delta to Southern California. But in 2004,...

<p>So this summer,there will be another confrontation. BillO lives on Long Island. I plan on chartering at least one bus - hopefully more - from New York City. We'll visit Bill with vets and Jews and African-Americans and peacefully set forth our grievances. We'll ask for an apology and suggest ways in which BillO might improve his behavior in the future.</p>

All the flowers are fading and ragged, just a few butterflies still hanging on. http://www.pbase.com/tsiya/root http://photobucket.com/albums/v244/tsiya/