The distinctive black and gold butterfly was perched on the end of a thistle flower, when a butterfly net came out of nowhere.

Monday, August 16, 1999

The distinctive black and gold butterfly was perched on the end of a thistle flower, when a butterfly net came out of nowhere. With a quick flick of the wrist, Larry Dolphin deftly swept the monarch butterfly from flower to net. Then he reached in and grabbed the butterfly, pressing the wings together from the underside toward the bottom.

"You can tell this one’s a male by looking at the black dot located here," the naturalist/JC Hormel Nature center director said, pointing toward the middle of the butterfly’s wing. Then he peeled a white dot off of a sheet of the same. "We’ll put the tag on the discal cell."

Tagging monarchs is easier than it sounds, the process of sticking a white dot on the wing takes only a few seconds once the colorful insect is captured. Recording the information to go with the tag – tag number, date, sex, tagging location, and any other pertinent items like weather conditions or the flower the butterfly was feeding on – takes a little longer. Getting a response to the tag takes the longest.

"We figure we’ll have to tag at least 300 to get one or two replies," Dolphin said.

The replies, when they come, will come from Mexico, Dolphin said. That’s where the monarchs that are being born now in Minnesota will winter, in the Sierra Madre Mountains. These monarchs – whose Minnesota population will swell in the next three weeks – are different from their parents because they are migratory. While their parents, who were breeders, lived two to five weeks, these will live up to eight or nine months so they can survive the trip to Mexico, winter, and breed in the mountains.

Right now, butterfly eggs and the bright green and yellow caterpillars that grow into monarchs are everywhere. On a short walk last week, Dolphin found 25 eggs and 15 caterpillars.

"Each female lays between 100-1,000 eggs," he said. "which are raised on a plant called the common milkweed. We’ll be seeing a population explosion very soon. August 15 is the magic date – butterflies born after that date will make the trip south."

The best place to find monarchs at the nature center is the Prairie Garden – a colorful remnant prairie full of bush clover, goldenrod, meadow blazing star and Indian grass. Maps of the trail system are available at the Nature Center information center, and walkers are encouraged to go out independently to observe the burgeoning population. Dolphin said the authorities are predicting a good year for the monarchs; last year was not a good year and the year before was exceptional.

"I saw waves of monarchs out here a couple years ago," Dolphin said.