Date: 10/11/2005

Number: 1

We were down at the White Shaman Preserve this weekend, about 40 miles NW of Del Rio, and were privileged to witness, in an abundance we'd never seen before, the migration south of the Monarch butterflies. The year's first cold front had come through, windy and wet, on Friday.
Saturday dawned bright and clear with a gentle northerly breeze. Sitting on the porch of our cabin with our morning coffee, looking out at the mountains to the south in Mexico, we noticed the Monarchs coming over and around the casa in greater and greater profusion. Seeing them in the distance, we took our binoculars, and focusing over the sage and thornbrush in the middle distance, were witness to an amazing sight. The entire desert was covered with an undulating blanket of sparkling Monarchs flowing ever south. At any moment there were probably hundreds in my field of vision, and they must have been coming through by the tens of thousands. We sat and watched in awe.

The next day, a stiff breeze had returned from the southeast and while we saw the occasional Monarch, it was nothing like the day before.
Finishing some fall cleaning chores about noon, I hiked off and descended into a steep rock cleft in the landscape that we call the Tinaja Canyon. Arriving at the sacred pool, I normally would have bathed but today decided not, perhaps fearing the chilling wind. I bouldered on down canyon to a grove of oaks, placing my feet carefully. I somehow sensed movement above me, perhaps the light changed or their wings pressed the air, and I looked quickly up to find the air full of hundreds of Monarchs, as though someone had shattered stained glass and thrown it dancing into the sky. I gasped and almost fell and quickly lowered myself to the rock canyon floor to watch, and then noticed how the trees were still dripping with butterflies, the creatures appended to every limb. A sudden whirling zephyr rushed through the canyon and instantly the Monarchs were formed into a golden whirlwind, the bright sunshine illuminating them against the shadowed gray stone cliff face.

Courtesy of Mike Quinn, Texas Monarch Watch

White Shaman Preserve, TX

Latitude: 29.4 Longitude: -100.9

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