Whether they are at risk or not, offering Monarch butterflies a place to stay is easy, enjoyable and fulfilling. These delicate creatures are a wonder.

When someone says they have a way station the first thing that comes to mind is a truck weigh station. However in this instance Alec and Jocelyn Rait of Andrewsville, Ontario were talking about a Monarch Butterfly way station. A place where Monarchs can safely lay their eggs, hatch, feed, grow, metamorphose and continue the cycle until it’s time to migrate back to Mexico.

All the Basics

“We read about way stations in a newspaper article a year ago,” says Jocelyn. They thought it was interesting, and since they already had a number of milkweeds in their yard they decided to investigate. They soon discovered that they had all the requirements to register their garden as a way station with Monarch Watch, an educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas, U.S. The requirements are not onerous. All a gardener needs is a minimum of 10 milkweed plants of two or more varieties or more than 10 of one variety and six varieties of nectaring plants that bloom at different times in the season. A few examples of recommended nectar sources are Bee Balm, Phlox, Golden Rod, Asters, Poppies Verbena, Clematis and Lavatera to name but a few.

“You also have to be a certain distance from pesticides and chemicals, but really the plants that are required are hardy and easy to grow in this area,” says Jocelyn.

The Riats aren’t the only registered way station in the area, Down to Earth Gardens in North Grenville, Ontario is another as is a private garden in Kemptville, Ontario.

There are 61 registered Monarch way station in Canada and nearly 1,300 in the U.S.

“Way stations are a great idea,” says David Gibo, Associate Professor, department of Zoology at the University of Toronto. “They raise awareness about biology, reduce the use of pesticides and certainly provide some help by offering Monarchs a place they can breed and feed safety.”

Unfortunately some Milkweed is labeled a noxious weed in Ontario, yet it is essential to the life of the Monarch.

Their Special Protective Needs

“Monarchs only lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves of the Milkweed plant and the caterpillars eat Milkweed exclusively,” says Andrea Howard, freelance environmental educator, but all is not lost.

“It is only the common Milkweed that is considered a noxious weed in Ontario and there are many other varieties of Milkweed that Monarch are just as happy to lay their eggs on,” says Peter Hall, biologist and butterfly expert with Agriculture Canada.

Milkweeds are what give the Monarch caterpillar their most potent defense against predators. By eating Milkweed they ingest the poisonous cardenolides (cardiac glycosides) in the Milkweed, becoming poisonous to vertebrates (frogs, lizards, birds, mice or any other species with a backbone.) It’s an effective chemical defense and their distinctive yellow, orange, black and white coloring is a warning to potential predators.

Distance Travellers

What is particularly unusual about Monarchs is that they migrate further than any butterfly in the world as far as we know – up to 3,000 miles. Monarchs also gain weight during migration because of the unique way in which they travel. They are masters at catching thermal currents.

“We’ve seen them at one and half kilometers in the air, gliding from one ,thermal current to the next hardly flapping at all,” says Gibo who studies Monarch flight.

How they know where to go is still a mystery.

“They use a variety of information as far as we know,” explains Gibo, “temperature, magnetic fields, ultra-violet light and other indicators and put that information together with certain rules of ‘conduct’ and away they go.”

Meanwhile it is the great-grandchildren of the Monarchs that arrive in Canada who eventually migrate back to the trans-volcanic mountains of Mexico.

Although listed as ‘at risk’ by Environment Canada, not everyone agrees that they are.

“They have an 8 to 10 year cycle,” says Gibo, “one thing you can be sure of is that when there aren’t very many butterflies around, then an explosion of them is imminent and vice versa,” he concludes.