Where are the monarch butterflies?

I've enjoyed my garden immensely this summer. The frogs in my pond have made it from tadpoles to adults, and are thriving. The birds are making good use of the feeders and birdbaths I've got scattered around the place, and the hummingbirds have finally shown up. It took them a while to discover the new feeder out front, but now that they know, I've got plenty of hummingbird activity on view each morning from my front porch.

I've seen so many butterflies! Yellow ones, blue ones--even black ones--but not the ones I long to see: the monarchs. Each day, I venture out in search of that flash of orange that tells me my beloved winged warriors are back from their trek northward from Mexico (and the next generation is frolicking among our plants), but I still haven't seen even one.

This morning I caught a flutter of brightness among the eupatorium. What I discovered was a faded, battered Eastern Tiger Swallowtail balanced delicately on the mop head of the Joe Pye weed. Butterfly sightings always make my heart soar, but today my heart dropped like a stone into my stomach. My little swallowtail was flying erratically. His wings were ragged, and the lower left quadrant was missing altogether, as though something had come along and taken a bite out of it (see photo, above). And he was all alone. No friends fluttering nearby. And still not a monarch in sight.

What's going on here? I asked myself, and immediately took to Google. Here's what I discovered:

It's been a tough year for butterflies. The weather has beaten up these little critters all over the country, but a rare snowstorm hit the hills in central Mexico this year, the place where the monarchs overwinter. The unusual weather there is responsible for wiping out a sizable number of the butterflies.

The problem of declining butterfly populations started years ago with urban sprawl, but became worse by major droughts in the U.S. a few years back.  Drought causes flowers to empty of nectar, and milkweed plants to die off, leading to the deaths of thousands of the winged insects. Ironically, this year's torrential rains and flooding made it harder for the butterflies to reproduce as they headed back north. In addition, there are concerns herbicides used on soybean and corn fields in the U.S. are killing off monarchs, since the chemicals have led to the die-off of milkweed plants. Milkweed is the only plant that monarchs lay eggs on. Its nectar is the sole food source for the young monarchs.

How to encourage the return of the monarch? Build a butterfly oasis in your backyard. As I've mentioned in previous posts, monarch-friendly plants include milkweed (Asclepias) for caterpillars to feed on, and flowers such as a butterfly bush (AKA Buddlea), for adult monarchs to drink from. And check out eButterfly.ca, a database that is helping researchers' document changes to the number and distribution of butterflies. Not only can you catch up on the latest buzz about butterflies, but you can share your observations, which benefits all of us.