Comment by doodlebugging

Several of my family members and I have planted pollinator gardens in the hopes that we can provide fuel stations for all the migrating insects and birds. Since we are kinda scattered from hell to breakfast we ended up with small to large spaces available scattered across several states including Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is great to see these migration paths tracked in this article.

That confirms that we are in good locations along normal flyways. My own property includes lots of antelope-horn milkweed and a couple other milkweeds. I found monarch caterpillars in my garden last week. With the recent rains breaking the summer drought I have so much in bloom again - asters, sunflowers, milkweed, numerous grasses, coreopsis, native onions, salvia, sage, dalea, etc. My place is humming with bees and wasps and the birds cast their tunes upon the winds.

For the first time since we moved here more than 25 years ago I had a meadowlark on my place and I was able to grab photos. It's a common bird where I grew up but though their range extends to this part of Texas, I had never seen one until late last week. Along with all the other birds passing through, that meadowlark was like encountering an old friend. I recognized the call and walked the place until I found the bird. As a kid I used to walk the pastures imitating the meadowlark calls, trying to sow confusion amongst their ranks, or maybe to let them know I might be one of the good guys. Who really knows?

I normally go outside every morning to identify birds using Merlin. For a couple weeks now, as I sit and listen to the world going by, monarchs and other butterflies have been migrating past. They are generally flying above treetop level hugging the treetops and terrain. As I drove north yesterday on a nice two hour trip there was a steady stream of butterflies. Most were traveling a few feet higher than an automobile as they crossed the road though some were skimming the ground and undoubtedly tempting fate. Makes me wonder how many have tags or stickers and of those, how many are scattered in pieces along the highway after dipping a bit too low to the ground.

Thanks for this article. I'm passing this around so that others can see where they are positioned on the flyway.