Date: 08/22/2025
Monarch Larva and Butterflies at Bald Eagle State Park
About two weeks ago, on August 10th, we joined a "Butterfly Hike" at Pennsylvania's Bald Eagle State Park. During that event we briefly saw only two Monarch Butterflies fluttering about.
Today my wife and I again headed to Bald Eagle State Park, this time for a "Marvelous Monarchs" program led by two of the park's naturalists.
We all (about two dozen participants) met at the "Frog Pond" for the first part of the program, in which the naturalists illustrated the life cycle of Monarchs, the role of milkweeds in that cycle, and the process of tagging Monarch Butterflies as sponsored by Monarch Watch. They also displayed some Monarch chrysalises, which can often be seen caged in the park office when captured this time of year.
For the second part of the program, we spread out in the area looking on nearby common milkweeds for Monarch eggs, larva, or chrysalises, and for any Monarch Butterflies in the air or on plants. Together, we found numerous larva and spotted at least a dozen Monarch Butterflies. For the most part, the Butterflies were individuals in flight each heading in no particular direction.
Examples of what we saw can be seen in the photomontage at the top of this page, which is described in this table:
| Top row from left to right | ||
| Park entrance sign | At the start of the Butterfly Trail | Group gathering for the presentation with two park naturalists; the area that we then searched for Monarchs was along the edge of the cleared path to their left |
| Bottom row from left to right | ||
| The Frog Pond | A Monarch Caterpillar | One of the few Monarch Butterflies that landed near enough and long enough for me to take a photo as it was nectaring on a thistle |
Howard, PA
Latitude: 41 Longitude: -77.6
Observed by: R. Timothy
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