The Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalists tag monarch butterflies each year to help study this creature's migration. We enjoy it a lot, but thought this year we would add a public tagging event in a city park to help the public learn more about monarchs. We'll have a display with information, butterfly nets for children to help catch butterflies, and the tags and paperwork. This will not only help children learn more about monarchs but also introduce them to scientific method in a very basic way.
This will be a short-notice event, based upon when the monarchs arrive in good numbers in Wichita Falls. We are seeing a few butterflies already and should have large numbers passing through within the next few weeks. Since the butterflies haven't given us their travel itinerary and weather is never certain, we will probably make a date decision 2 - 3 days in advance of the event. We plan to tag in Lake Wichita park, near Murphy's Mound where the willows (and consequently, butterflies) are plentiful. I will post as soon as I have a date. I am just providing a heads up to get the event on your radar.
The Master Naturalists will also do some limited tagging at the EcoFair at River Bend Nature Center on October 3, so you can also plan to be there. I don't know what time the tagging will happen, and it is likely the butterflies will already be caught for the demonstration.
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