Most people living in the north recognize the colorful orange and black monarch butterfly that flutters around in their backyard each summer, but not everyone realizes monarchs are snowbirds. They make their way south to Mexico for the winter.  

On Sunday, March 24, a screening of the award-winning "Flight of the Butterflies" at the Harbor Theater had a full house.  The film chronicles one of the most amazing migrations in the world and the scientist who spent his life trying to make sense of it.  Boothbay Region Land Trust sponsored the screening.  Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens plant curator Andy Brand was guest speaker.

As a child in the 1920s, Fred Urquhart was captivated by the beauty of monarch butterflies and wondered where they went in the winter.  This interest turned into a career passion.  His wife Norah became a collaborator as he continued to study this mystery from their home near Toronto, Canada.

Monarch butterflies develop from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis and then adult.  An egg, attached to a milkweed leaf by a female butterfly, then becomes a caterpillar and feeds on the plant.  The caterpillar becomes a unique chrysalis, or capsule, that provides the environment for the caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly.  Fewer than 1 percent reach adulthood. 

Urquhart's first difficult task was to find a way to attach a tag to a monarch butterfly’s wing.  A simple grocery tag that would stay attached proved best.  After many years of tracking the butterflies, Urquhart realized a need to get results from their breeding grounds across the continent. He started the Insect Migration Association, known as citizen scientists, to participate in "The Great Butterfly Hunt." By the 1960s, there were over 4,000 members.

A monarch butterfly named Dana (taken from Danaus Plexipus, the monarch butterflies' scientific name) was tagged number PS397 and released in Texas. 

After a failed exploration to locate the wintering monarch butterflies in Texas, two amateur naturalists Urquhart enlisted discovered an amazing number wintering in Mexico.  Urquhart arrived and by chance found Dana – indisputable proof of the butterflies' incredible journey and a rewarding conclusion to the perplexing mystery.   

Urquhart won the Order of Canada for "one of the greatest natural history discoveries of our time."

Donations can be made to BRLT at brlt@bbrlt.org or in person at the new Oak Point Farm visitor center at 60 Samoset Road in Boothbay Harbor. CMBG’s Butterfly House will open on the second weekend of June.