Trying to unlock the secrets of the West’s monarch
butterflies, writer and naturalist Robert Michael Pyle logged over
9,500 miles in his beloved 1982 Honda
Powdermilk.
In his Chasing
Monarchs travelogue, Pyle starts by the Similkameen River
in Canada, traveling south along the Columbia and Snake rivers,
through the Great Basin, up onto the Colorado Plateau and into
Mexico before swinging up to the California
Coast.
Along the way, he delivers delightful
riffs on the butterfly. He explains how the insect adjusts its
center of gravity for optimal gliding by taking on or expelling
water for ballast. He finds monarchs easily travel thousands of
miles in a few days, and confirms the theory that Western varieties
do not all winter in California – some split off into
Mexico.
Pyle’s compact, evocative descriptions
make you want to grab an atlas, jump in a car and hit the road. Of
Utah’s Black Rock Desert, he says, “It was black pumice and pudding
pahoehoe, lava that looked a lot like dark-chocolate fudge
abandoned in midswirl.”
Peopling the landscape
are river guides, border patrolmen, waitresses, Native Americans
and writers who know the monarchs’ whereabouts and their local
habits. Monarchs, Pyle discovered, cross mountain ranges at will,
and over-winter where they choose. But the rapid spread of
development and the proliferation of herbicides make him fear for
their future.
Chasing Monarchs:
Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert
Michael Pyle, Houghton Mifflin Co., 215 Park Ave. South, New York,
NY 10003. 289 pages, $24.
Copyright © 2000 HCN and John
Rosapepe
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Migrating with the monarchs.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
