How to see California’s spectacular monarch butterflies
It’s Monday. There’s still time to see California’s spectacular monarch butterflies. In addition, a man suspected of killing three homeless men in Los Angeles has been arrested.
The monarch butterflies that come to California every year are, in a word, enchanting.
Across the state, thousands of butterflies shelter in eucalyptus trees in groves that resemble enormous vibrating beehives. Their wings appear dull when folded, largely blending in with the leaves.
But every now and then, as I recently experienced, a single butterfly bursts into a spasm of orange and black as it flutters overhead, revealing the miniature stained-glass window wings that make the species so beloved.
The monarchs are a spectacular sight and their arrival is a long-standing holiday tradition in California.
Beginning in October, populations of monarchs living west of the Rocky Mountains arrive in California to breed and wait out the winter, then move inland again in early spring. The journey there and back takes many weeks – longer than the lifespan of an adult butterfly – so several generations will live and die along the way. (East of the Rockies, monarch populations make a similar migration south to Mexico and Florida each fall.)
There are about 400 locations in California where monarchs spend the winter, spread from southern Mendocino County to the border with Mexico, but mainly on the central coast. I found myself entranced by these mystical creatures last month a eucalyptus grove in Pismo Beach, one of the state’s largest butterfly sites. Currently there are more than 10,000 monarchs.
That may seem like a lot, but monarchs are in serious decline and were classified as endangered last year. The number of western monarchs migrating to California, a population that once numbered millions, has dropped 95 percent since the 1980s, said Emma Pelton, a senior conservation biologist at the University of California. Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon.
A particularly steep decline began in the winter of 2018, when about 30,000 monarch butterflies overwintered in California, she said. Two years later, only 2,000 were counted statewide, and some of the groves that usually attract the most monarchs were devoid of them.
“The bottom fell out in 2020,” Pelton told me, adding that the moment sparked a lot of “existential conversations in the monarch world” about whether the species would ever recover. But in what Pelton called a “somewhat miraculous” turnaround, their numbers jumped back to about 200,000 in 2021 and 2022.
There’s a lot we don’t understand about monarchs, so it’s difficult to pinpoint why their numbers have fluctuated so drastically in recent years, but environmental factors such as changes in temperature and precipitation likely played a role. In general, experts believe that habitat loss (due to deforestation due to development or other reasons), pesticide use, drought and climate change have all contributed to the species’ long-term decline.
So how will 2023 stack up? California’s annual monarch counts come from two surveys conducted each year at 250 locations, and the first survey of the season was just completed yesterday. Official numbers have yet to be released, but preliminary estimates suggest the number of monarchs in California will be slightly lower this winter than in the past two seasons, Pelton said. She speculated that the “atmospheric river” storms that ravaged the state last winter may have kept the population in check.
“This year we’re seeing numbers that indicate it’s been a relatively good year,” Pelton told me.
If you want monarchs to bloom, you can plant native flowering plants in your garden, including milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars eat. Make sure the plants you buy from nurseries are pesticide-free and limit your own pesticide use if possible.
And perhaps most importantly, visit the butterflies, Pelton said. Their numbers peak in November and December. Enjoy and appreciate them.
They are magical.
There are hundreds wintering groves in California. Here are some of the places that usually have the most butterflies:
Visiting the monarchs is one of my California holiday traditions. What are yours? Email me at CAToday@nytimes.com. Please include your full name and the city where you live.
Where we travel to
Today’s tip comes from Jorge Moreno, a spokesman for the state parks department. He recommends Fremont Peak State Park in San Juan Bautista on the central coast:
“This park offers sweeping views of Monterey Bay, the San Benito Valley, Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Mountains east of Big Sur from the grassland trails of the higher peaks of the Gabilan Range. There are camping and picnic facilities in the park, as well as an astronomical observatory with a 30-inch telescope, which is open for public programs on select evenings.”
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We will share more in future editions of the newsletter.
Tell us
What songs belong on a California holiday playlist? We hope to release one before the new year.
Email me at CAtoday@nytimes.com with your suggestions. Please include your name and the city in which you live.
And before you go: good news
What started as a cover story has grown through enormous popularity into Alta Journal’s new, definitive guide to bookstores throughout California and the West Coast. It was on the bookshelf last month.
The new book, “Best Bookstores in California and the West,” is a cross between a careful travel guide and a love letter to the independent bookstores that help keep the region’s communities thriving. Organized by geographic area—from the Los Angeles Metropolitan area all the way up the coast to Oregon and Washington—the guide includes a list of the best stores in each area, as well as contributors’ essays on stores whose impact on the community stands out . , whether they are well-known or off the beaten path.
The idea for the guide came to fruition after the success of a 2022 special issue of Alta Journal, in which contributors recommended 85 independent bookstores. After that issue went to press, the publication solicited reader nominations for stores it might have missed and received an avalanche of responses, which were later compiled into an online version that at one point included 132 bookstores.
The new standalone guidebook allows book lovers to take a literary road trip through the Golden State and beyond, discovering gems like a science fiction bookstore in the Mojave Desert or a one-room memorial library on the Central Coast.
If you are interested, you can find more information about the guide at Alta’s website.
Thank you for reading. I’ll come back tomorrow. — Soumya
PS Here it is today’s mini crossword.
Maia Coleman, Briana Scalia and Halina Bennet contributed to California Today. You can reach the team via CAtoday@nytimes.com.
Sign up here to receive this newsletter in your inbox.