Monarch Butterfly event (#2!) with Jeanne Nichols

ABOUT THE LECTURE: We invite you to the second in a two part series exploring the wonderful and fascinating world of Monarch Butterflies! We welcomed Butterfly Expert, Jeanne Nichols to the library last April to discuss some of the measures we can take to help minimize the decrease of and possibly help build up the current Monarch population. Additionally, Ms. Nichols showed us how to begin a Monarch Butterfly habitat and encourage these rare beauties to visit your garden!  Now, we welcome Ms. Nichols back to show us Monarch eggs, caterpillars, chrysalides, and butterflies, and she will provide us with an update on her Monarch Butterfly progress over the summer. Come learn how to raise and release these rare and important creatures! To date, Ms. Nichols has already released 4 butterflies, has 3 chrysalides, appx. 90 small caterpillars, and a bunch of eggs. This lecture will include a PowerPoint screen presentation with lots of pictures, and there’ll be a display table with butterfly raising paraphernalia. Live Monarchs, from eggs to butterflies will be present at this event.

In the past several decades, Monarchs have experienced a 95% decline in population. This decline is attributed to several threats: habitat destruction, pesticide exposure (which includes insecticides, herbicides, and rodenticides), and extreme weather. We can’t control the weather, but we can do something to work with extreme weather, minimize or eliminate habitat destruction, and control or eliminate the use of pesticides.

This lecture will cover the lifecycle of Monarchs; their migration journeys and overwintering locations; what’s involved in raising them; and some of the measures we can take to help minimize the decrease of and possibly help build up the current Monarch population.

ABOUT THE LECTURER: Jeanne Nichols has been a resident of Sandwich for 28 years. After retiring from her full-time job in 2016, she joined the Sandwich Garden Club and took over as Membership Chair in 2017. Along with an interest in gardening, she also had a long-time interest in butterflies. The Monarch population has been declining, so she wanted to help increase the population in any way she could. 

Jeanne planted Butterfly Weed – a type of milkweed plant – in her yard, but it was many years before she finally saw a few Monarch caterpillars on them. Within a week the caterpillars were gone, so the next year when she found 10 caterpillars on her plants she moved them to containers and successfully raised and released seven healthy Monarch butterflies. After that she was hooked and since 2019 she has raised and released close to 900 Monarchs. Now there are several types of milkweed plants scattered all over Jeanne’s yard to support and increase the declining Monarch population.

During the summer and early fall months, Jeanne’s front porch has many butterfly cages full of growing caterpillars, hanging chrysalides, and butterflies waiting to be released.