Flowers and Pollinators near the Monarch Sanctuaries

Last post I talked about some of the help Alternare is giving to enable local people to reforest their lands. The monarch butterfly overwinters in these forests, way way up in the mountains.

Today I'll show you a little bit of the afternoon of a pollinator in January in those mountains.

But first, where are we talking about?

The state of Michoacan in Mexico is shown in the map. A line drawn due west of Mexico City hits the border of Michoacan in rugged mountains. It's here that the butterfly nestles in branchs of the "Oyamel" fir tree at 3,000 meters above sea level elevations, in the "Reserva de la Biosfera Santuario Mariposa" - the Biosphere Reserve of the Butterfly Sanctuary.


The places where I saw monarchs are to the west of the state line (red in the map), where afternoon sunlight is stronger than morning.

Frost is common at these heights but mostly on the ground in places with a view of the sky.

The monarchs are up in the trees, not at the top where they would be exposed, and not at the bottom where the cold air sinks, but in the middle.


By morning, the butterflies are chilled - far too sluggish to fly, but not harmed either.

Much of the Oyamel forest is about as closed-in as a typical Canadian spurce-fir forest, with sparse undergrowth.

But in places where strong winds have blown down a patch of trees, the January wildflowers are very abundant.

The splashes of blue and red are some of the many native Mexican sages - Salvia species.

It was in these clearings that we saw some pollinators even in the cool mornings.

This bumblebee flew even in early mornings. She's been busy collecting pollen (see the gold speckles on her head?) which means even in cold January she's raising young. I think she's Bombus ephippiatus, a reasonably common bee in the highlands but one that's being over-collected for use in greenhouse tomato pollination.

We saw a few honeybees, but they were more abundant lower down where it wasn't soo cool.


I caught a glimpse of a fritillary butterfly on flowers beside the road but it disappeared before I could take a picture.

This groundsel, Senecio callosus, was in bloom everywhere and in the afternoon the monarchs loved it. I haven't found a common name for it.

Here's another clearing with many, many sages blooming.