THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY
Not only is Walkers Pond on the migratory path for birds and waterfowl but also the Monarch butterfly rests here before flying off to Mexico. Imagine that fragile creature over August-October, flies from Canada and the USA to over winter in coastal southern California to the Transvolcanic Mountains of central Mexico. Females lay their eggs along the migratory route. This migration takes up to three generations of Monarchs to complete.
Other Monarchs stay in one area their entire lives. 
It takes about a month for the adult to develop (from egg to pupa to adult). 

The life span of the adult Monarch varies, depending on the season in which it emerged from the pupa and whether or not it belongs to a migratory group of Monarchs. Adults that emerged in early summer have the shortest life spans and live for about two to five weeks. Those that emerged in late summer survive over the winter months. The migratory Monarchs, which emerge from the pupa in late summer and then migrate south, live a much longer life, about 8-9 months. 


You can imagine my delight to see thousands of these beauties flitting from flower to flower Monday morning. There are rewards for being a pond watcher. They were gone when I came back with my camera. We can send a man to the moon, yet no one has figured out how these butterflies know the route to take for this migration. Remember those butterflies that I saw will not be the ones that come back. What a beautiful metamorphosis.