[ Up ] [ April 1999 ] [ August 1999 ] [ January 2000 ] [ April 2000 ] [ August 2000 ] [ January 2001 ] [ May 2001 ] [ June 2001 ] [ August 2001 ] [ November 2001 ]
[ AVBC Home Page ]
------------APRIL, 1999-------------
Lawn, Flower and Garden Show
The club was awarded a 3rd place ribbon in the Education Area for
the second year in a row at the Wichita Lawn, Flower and Garden Show. Our theme this year,
"The Prairie: Gateway to Monarch Butterfly Conservation", was chosen to fit the
show's theme, "Gateway to Spring", and to highlight the recent research results
which show that 50% of the Monarch overwintering population in Mexico had its natal
origins in the midwestern portion of the US.
Thanks very much to all the members who contributed time, energy,
enthusiasm and resources to the booth. It wouldn't have happened without your support and
hard work. Special thanks to Elsie Neumann, who fashioned the Monarch wings that adorned
the gateway, made a trip to Lawrence to pick up Monarch caterpillars and milkweed plants,
and arranged with Botanica for a loan of the plants we had on display. Thanks to Monarch
Watch for giving us the milkweed and caterpillars and various brochures gratis. Thanks to
Marge Kaegi's daughter, Gail Heywood, for once more donating for free the use of her
display set-up. A professional piece of gear, it adds immensely to the finished look of
our booth, and this year provided a fitting setting for Karla Jahn's Monarch posters and
her great photographs of butterflies and flowers.
Maybe next year will be the year for a second or even a first place
award!
- Roy Beckemeyer
This is the year for Butterfly Milkweed!
Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) has been chosen as
the Kansas Wildflower of the Year. This honor is bestowed on a notable species of native
wildflower each year by a committee made of members from the Kansas Wildflower Society,
the Kansas Association of Arboreta and Botanical Gardens and Botanica The Wichita Gardens.
Of course, we butterfliers do not have to be convinced of the
virtues of this species, but many people are unaware of what a jewel we have growing in
our prairies! Unlike most milkweeds, Butterfly Milkweed does not send out root runners and
take over the place. It makes one compact clump that re-sprouts from its root crown each
year. And what flowers - - ! Ranging from deep red to orange to yellow -sometimes combined
on the same specimen- their blossoms will draw not only the eye but also every butterfly
in the neighborhood for a nectar snack!
This species is not commonly used by Monarchs to feed their
caterpillars. They prefer the "weedier" species such as Common or Showy
Milkweed. So, you do not have to worry about making a choice between feeding adults and
young.
The Ark Valley Butterfly Club has seed packets of Butterfly
Milkweed available for a $1 donation. Inside are enough seeds to make a mini-hedge! These
come with instructions for germinating and growing them. (As a perennial, they may not
flower until their third season.) Contact the club if you want a packet. Or, if you know
of an opportunity to market them to an interested group, and want several packets to take
along, let us know and we can work something out.
Book Review
"Butterflies through Binoculars: The East" A field
guide to the butterflies of eastern North America. 1999, by Jeffrey Glassberg, Oxford
University Press, NY, $18.95 (paperback)
Reviewed by Roy Beckemeyer
Jeff Glassberg, president of NABA, had told us about his work on
this book when he visited Wichita last year for the Botanica Butterfly House grand
opening. For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting it, it’s now available!
Some of
you may have a copy of Jeff's earlier publication, "Butterflies through Binoculars: A
Field Guide to Butterflies in the Boston-New York-Washington Region". The new book is
the same size format, but is almost half again as thick. While too large to fit into a
shirt pocket, the guide would be less useful in a smaller format, as the photos would then
have to be smaller. And the photos are what make the book. Generally, the arrangement and
photo choices for this book are really very well done, and improve on the arrangement in
the previous book. I am anxious to get it out into the field with me to test it out.
Unfortunately, Jeff's choice of a dividing line between east and
west runs smack through the middle of Kansas, so that western species found here are not
covered. (The birders in the crowd have had the same problem with the Peterson field
guides to the birds for years.) However, 80% of the butterflies and 83% of the skippers on
the Kansas list are covered by this book, so it will be quite useful to Kansans until the
western version of Butterflies through Binoculars appears.
(Note: the same situation applies to the two companion coloring
books "Butterflies of the American West" and "Butterflies of Eastern North
America" by Paul Opler and Susan Strawn. What this shows is that our butterfly fauna
has more in common with the eastern forests than the western deserts and mountains. - ed.)
I highly recommend this publication to all Ark Valley Butterfly
Club members; it should add to your butterfly recognition skills, and will certainly add
to your enjoyment.
Got Your Nametag Yet?
Thanks to Frank Gibbs for pushing our nametag project to reality.
The new tags are orange with black lettering. They have an image of a butterfly on them
along with the name of the club and YOUR name! If you want your very own personalized Ark
Valley Butterfly Club nametag (so folks will know you are out looking at the ground with
your binoculars for a good reason!) contact Economy Engravers, at 686-7617. They are
located at 11818 E. Kellogg. For a mere $5.00 you can be official next time you are out in
the field.
New Butterfly Listserves
If you want to monitor butterfly activity in either Texas or the
southwest, you may be interested to join two new internet listserves. For those
unacquainted, these are web-based bulletin boards where people post observations on
particular topics. Anyone can join and everyone who joins gets to see what the other
members are saying. (Of course, you can un-join any time also!)
To join the Texas listserve, send email to: LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG with "SUBSCRIBE
TX-BUTTERFLY First Name Last Name" in the email body and nothing in the subject line.
SoWest Lep covers Arizona, Southern California, Southern Nevada,
New Mexico, and Baja California, & Sonora, Mexico. To subscribe go to the following
web address and follow the instructions:
www.onelist.com/subscribe/SoWestLep
NABA butterfly park
NABA, in cooperation with the South Texas Butterfly Association, is
aiming to create the premier butterfly garden in North America on 100 acres in the lower
Rio Grande valley near Mission, Texas. It will be right next door to Bentsen-Rio Grande
State Park, which is an outstanding wildlife-watching destination already. The lower Rio
Grande valley has the greatest diversity of butterfly species in all the United States,
which makes this an ideal spot to have a butterfly park. Open-air gardens designed to draw
in the local butterflies, a riverwalk and a visitor/education center are all part of the
plan.
As you might suspect, this will take a little money. The land is
being donated contingent on NABA raising $500,000 to begin the project. If you want to
help bring this dream to reality, send your tax-deductible donation to: NABA, 4 Delaware
Rd., Morristown, NJ 07960. If you include written instructions saying, "please return
my donation to me if NABA Butterfly Park is not created by Dec. 31, 2000," they will
honor your request. Anyone giving $100 or more will be given lifetime admission to the
park.
For more information on this project, visit the NABA web site at:
http://www.naba.org/nababp.html
Monarch News
Nancy Mangeri reported the first local Monarch sighting at her home
southwest of Wichita the week of April 5. Two Monarchs were seen and both were in good
condition, so they must have been offspring from the over-wintering population.
Pat Beckemeyer saw a Monarch in their yard on April 8. The blustery
south winds have pushed the Monarchs north very quickly this year. As of April 11 they
were as far north as northeast Kansas, central Illinois and Maryland! For a look at the
spring migration, go to the following web site to see a map of reported sightings across
North America:
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/spring1999/
species/monarch/index.html
Return to top of page
Return to AVBC HOME PAGE