Dear friends,

Monarchs migrating to their overwintering Oyamel forests seem to have mostly completed their arrival. The colonies in in Sierra Chincu and El Rosario sanctuaries have formed in the highest in elevations and are the largest but behaviors are different.

Sierra Chincua Sanctuary

The colony in Sierra Chincua continues at the El Zacatonal location looking as dense and lively as last week:

Guides comment that visitors delight themselves at the wonderful performance all day long now that the cold and rainy days are gone.

El Rosario Sanctuary

The colony in the El Rosario Sanctuary has a slighlty lower population than last week having just moved, separated and spread with a few clusters.

At both Sanctuaries, colonies are consolidating and are now isolated for research.

Rich Stories

Meanwhile, local communities living amongst the Oyamel forests gather around the kitchen hearths to listen to stories of monarchs from grandparents.

Near Sierra Chincua, in the Garatachea community, Luis, an elder of the De Jesús family, narrates how his father, the great-grandfather of Juan de Jesús, assisted the first foreign scientists in his research expeditions over 45 years ago.

“Evodio my brother and me, both strong young guys would carry the lunch boxes and impressive cameras, while father Juan would concentrate mimicking Mr. Lincoln Brower and Bill Calvert as he found the best trails into the forest, to which Lincoln and Bill tried hard to respond in their incipient but persevering Spanish!.  They simply became parto of our big family for many years!  And there the  overwhelming, immense orange patch in the woods, appearing in the fall, disappearing in the spring, of which us natives knew for generations never imagining this could be such a wonder for the world!”

Kevin listened to his grandparents tell him:

“Out there, we as children ran up and down in excitmente at seeing the water-streams carpet in orange as the sun-rays warmed the morning up. Thousands of butterflies would cascade down from the mountains to later hurry back up there before sun-set. Much lower numbers still do it nowadays”.

The strong history told by the elders living within the Oyamel forests inspire awe and wonder of the natural world and the journey of the monarch.

Estela Romero

Angangueo, Michoacán, México.

Note to our readers: This article has been edited from the original English version. 

Read the Spanish version of Estela Romero’s letter»