The Monarchs' Wedding

The Monarchs’ Wedding

Flying through blue air two

monarch butterflies joined together

bright orange veined with black—

one winging above

the other folded

and  upside down below.

In wild  joy they taste each other

 with their feet: six above and six below

higher and still higher on velvety wings

silken bodies dotted with white

monarchs on their nuptial flight.

--Barbara Spring

Monarch Butterfly Migrations: A Poem by Barbara Spring

Monarchs

Along Lake Michigan’s shore monarchs wing southward

Four bright orange wings with black stripes and white dots

Flutter in the wind then glide in airstreams.

In their dream like flights

Monarch butterflies wing their way south

on airstreams to Mexico.

They land on milkweed--six black legs taste pink blossoms

  spiral tongues unfurl deep into the flower

and they sip its sweetness.

Crowds of monarchs fill the sky

Doppler picks up a moving cloud

yet the air is clear.

From chilly Michigan

To sunny Mexico

They go—they go.

                                             --Barbara Spring

Pilieated Woodpecker

Today we heard a piliated woodpccker with its wild cry and then saw it making a huge hole in a basswood tree.  We saw a downy woodpecker working on the small upper branches of catelpa trees.  These birds are hungry and need energy to nest. We watched while they worked on the trees. The Great Lakes are alive with birds that stay all winter and those that migrate.  We will be seeing warblers soon and a good time to see them is before leaves pop out on the trees. Then we will see monarch butterflies that migrate along the shorelines of Lake Michigan.

Fish are migrating into the rivers just now: whitefish, steelhead.