CHASING MONARCHS
By Robert Michael Pyle
Mariner Books, 1999
Category: Nonfiction for Grownups
Robert Michael Pyle wrote another book—which I haven’t read yet—that bears the greatest subtitle ever: LIFE AS FIELD TRIP. Increasingly, I see my life this way … a series of very excellent field trips punctuated with quiet time for recording those trips in words. It is a good way to live.
In the Pyle book I read over this holiday weekend, CHASING MONARCHS, Pyle takes an incredible field trip with one of my favorite insects, the monarch butterfly. He packed some snacks, his trusty butterfly net (he calls her Martha), and headed for the northwesternmost monarch breeding sites, which happen to be in British Columbia. There he scoured milkweed patches for monarchs, captured and tagged as many as he could, and paid careful attention to the direction his subjects flew off in when released. Then he hopped back in his car and followed them.
Now that is a field trip.
Pyle ended up in Mexico, which is surprising because popular opinion has long held that western monarchs migrate not to Mexico but to southern California. (A field trip with scientific implications … can this get any better? I think not.) This is not a book for the faint of heart, but anyone with a sincere interest in monarch butterflies and their annual migration will enjoy the trip.
Speaking of field trips, tonight the kids and I stepped onto the back deck about an hour after sunset and spotted a celestial triangle of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter. Many thanks to Uncle Brendan, who not only bought us the telescope you see here, but also called to remind us to bring it outside tonight!
© Benjamin Griffin Burns
© Loree Griffin Burns
Jupiter is the easier-to-see bright spot to the right of the crescent moon. Venus is harder to see, but if you squint at the above photo just south of the area between the moon and Jupiter, you’ll see it. Pretty cool!