Driving in the car with Charlotte while we sing and converse, there is never a dull moment. On a recent trip to Russell Orchards traveling along Rt. 133 in Essex –
Me – Look at that beautiful field of goldenrod honey.
Charlotte – Monarchs must live there Mimi (normal tone of voice). Then she shouts, Monarchs livin’ the dream in the goldenrod patch!
Kid’s brains are endlessly making wonderful connections. She learned that expression from her Bops (my husband Tom), I think. He is always saying thing like “we live in paradise,”, or “we’re living the dream.” It was just funny thinking about Monarchs in the context of living the dream in a field of wildflowers, but of course they are 🙂
For a second year in a row, the Monarch numbers are plummeting.
“World Wildlife Fund Mexico in collaboration with CONANP and the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) announced the total forest area occupied by overwintering monarch colonies today. Nine (9) colonies were located this winter season with a total area of 2.10 hectares, a 26% decrease from the previous season (2.83 ha).” – Monarch Watch
Call to Action! Create wildlife sanctuaries by planting flowering native trees, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers that bloom throughout the growing season.
For nearly two decades I have been sharing information on how we can all help all pollinators, not just Monarch Butterflies. Learn more by joining me virtually on March 17th for my program “The Pollinator Garden” that I am presenting to the Massachusetts Pollinator Network.
For Monarchs specifically, we in the northeast need plant milkweed for Monarch caterpillars and asters and goldenrods for the southward migrating adult butterflies. Creating habitats for Monarchs has a cascading effect that helps myriad pollinators and songbirds.
All along the Monarch’s migratory corridors, climate change, loss of habitat, and the use of pesticides are the greatest threats to the butterflies. Because of climate change, the life cycle of wildflowers are often out of synch with the time the butterflies are traveling through a region. Examples include last September’s drought in the Texas Funnel (2020) and the cold Arctic blast in Texas this past February (2021). When the Monarchs migrated through Texas last fall, there were few if any wildflowers still in bloom to help fuel their journey. Followed by the unusually deep freeze in Texas that killed emerging milkweed shoots (food for the next generation’s caterpillars), this double whammy of sorts does not bode well for this year’s already reduced population traveling along the Monarch Highway.
I am overjoyed to share that Beauty on the Wing received the Best Feature Film award at the Providence Children’s Film Festival. Thank you friends for voting!I am so appreciative of your ongoing support.Thank you for taking the time to watch and to vote.
It is not easy to host a film festival during the pandemic. Without doubt, it takes enormous amounts of work and professionalism. Festival organizer Eric Bilodeau created a fantastic event, and managed to do all with grace and a wonderful sense of humor. I looked forward to Eric’s communications, for instance, when he requested stills from the film, I sent a batch of photos. He wrote back, did I have anything more colorful? I was taken aback at first before realizing he was kidding. And when he announced Beauty had won, writing -“the Monarch is King!” I think I will use that in the future 🙂
I was able to view many of the films and they were wonderfully interesting and inspiring. I am so proud Beauty on the Wing was a part of the Providence Children’s Film Festival! This was mentioned previously but two of my favorites were Microplastic Madness and The Last Lightkeepers. I hope you have a chance to see if you haven’t already done so.
Thank you so very much again for your kind support.
Beauty on the Wing is playing through tomorrow, Saturday, and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00pm on February 20th, Saturday afternoon. If you would, please share the link with friends and please vote for Beauty on the Wing after watching the film. Thank you! Here is the link if you would like to sign up to participate in the Q and A. All the films in the festival are geoblocked to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
All this school vacation week, the virtual Providence Children’s Film Festival has been airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and purchase a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long.
Some of the outstanding documentaries I have had the chance to view this week are First We Eat, Microplastic Madness, and The Last Lightkeepers. I think everyone would enjoy all the films in the festival but especially, we on Cape Ann will love The Last Lightkeepers.
Do you know why Thacher Island has not one, but two lighthouses? At about ten minutes into the documentary, local lighthouse historian and president of the Thacher Island Association Paul St. Germain reveals why. Thacher Island’s Twin Lights are featured prominently in the film as are a number of familiar New England lights.
The Last Lightkeepers is filmed beautifully, telling different aspects of the history of lighthouses as well as current status. A quote from one of the interviewees, author Eric Jay Dolan (Brilliant Beacons), especially resonated, “Lighthouses are there to benefit everyone regardless of where they come from, their race, nationality, their creed, their beliefs. Lighthouses are a manifestation of a government’s desire to make navigation for Everyone safer. In today’s turbulent political times, I especially like to think about lighthouses being a beacon for the world, a welcoming embrace for those that are choosing to come to our country…”
Do you know why Thacher Island has not one, but two lighthouses? At about ten minutes into the documentary, local lighthouse historian and president of the Thacher Island Association Paul St. Germain reveals why. Thacher Island’s Twin Lights are featured prominently in the film as are a number of familiar New England lights.
The Last Lightkeepers is filmed beautifully, telling different aspects of the history of lighthouses as well as current status. A quote from author Eric Jay Dolan (Brilliant Beacons) especially resonated, “Lighthouses are there to benefit everyone regardless of where they come from, their race, nationality, their creed, their beliefs. Lighthouses are a manifestation of a government’s desire to make navigation for Everyone safer. In today’s turbulent political times, I especially like to think about lighthouses being a beacon for the world, a welcoming embrace for those that are choosing to come to our country…”
All this school vacation week, the virtual Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
After watching The Last Lightkeepers, I am more inspired than ever that we form a nonprofit organization to restore Gloucester’s crumbling lighthouses. There is a great deal of expertise from which we can draw upon.
THERE IS NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT! Please write and let me know if you have every thought about how to go abut restoring our lighthouses and if you have an interest in Gloucester’s beautiful, but severely decaying, beacons. What do you think about the name Friends of Gloucester Lighthouses?Director, Filmmaker & Editor Rob Apse
All this school vacation week, the Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
At this moment I am currently watching The Last Lighthouse Keepers. This is a film I have been especially super excited to see largely because I think here in Gloucester we should form a Friends of Gloucester Lighthouses Association. Our lighthouses are in increasingly deplorable condition. I would like very much for we in Gloucester to follow in the footsteps of Rockort’s Paul St. Germain and the Thacher Island Association in restoring our lighthouses and the surrounding grounds.
The Last Lighthouse Keepers – This stunning documentary explores lighthouses across New England (including in Rhode Island) and the sadly decaying condition of many of them. Many abandoned lighthouses haven’t been tended to in decades or since they were replaced by updated tools of navigation. Director Rob Apse captures the beauty of these American sentinels that once defined a nation’s coastline. The Last Lightkeepers highlights stories of individuals currently fighting to preserve these structures while capturing their folklore before the lights go dim forever.
All this school vacation week, the Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
At this moment I am currently watching First We Eat – funny, wry, and fascinating to watch the teenagers especially as they try to adjust to eating only local sourced food, in the middle of the Yukon. Read more here –
“What happens when an ordinary family, living just south of the Arctic Circle, bans all grocery store food from their house for one year? Add 3 skeptical teenagers, 1 reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar, -40 temperatures.
Putting food security to the test in the far North of Canada filmmaker Suzanne Crocker, living just 300 km from the Arctic Circle, removes absolutely all grocery store food from her house. For one year, she feeds her family of five, only food that can be hunted, fished, gathered, grown or raised around Dawson City, Yukon. Add three skeptical teenagers, one reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar and -40 temperatures. Ultimately the story becomes a celebration of community and the surprising bounty of food that even a tiny community in the far North can provide. After all, “First we eat, then we do everything else.” – MFK Fisher. Written by Suzanne Crocker”
For further reading and some terrific background information, see the following article, published by the NRDC in early February of this year. Scenes from Beauty on the Wing were filmed at the stunning forest at the Cerro Pelón Monarch Butterfly sanctuary.
NRDC Profiles:
For a Family in Mexico, a Mission to Protect Monarchs
Siblings Joel, Anayeli, and Patricio Moreno see the future of their community and that of the butterflies that migrate annually to the local Cerro Pelón forest as being intimately connected.
If there’s something that the Moreno family agrees on, it’s that monarch butterflies changed their lives. And not just their own but the lives of most in Macheros, Mexico. The agricultural village of 400 people—whose name translates to “stables” in Spanish, because of the 100 horses that also make their home here—sits at the entrance to Cerro Pelón, one of four sanctuaries in Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, established by the federal government in 1986.
It started when Melquiades Moreno de Jesus secured a job as a forest ranger, or guardabosque, in 1982. Six years earlier, National Geographic had run a feature on monarch migration, bringing international attention to the butterflies’ overwintering sites in the mountainous oyamel fir forests some 80 miles west of Mexico City—though locals had discovered the colonies long before outsiders descended on the area. Soon after that publication, the State of Mexico’s Commission of Natural Parks and Wildlife (Comisión Estatal de Parques Naturales y de la Fauna, or CEPANAF) established the local forest ranger positions, employing men from Macheros to patrol the part of the sanctuary that’s in the state of Mexico. (Part of the butterfly reserve also lies in the state of Michoacán.) CEPANAF hired Melquiades several years later and he stayed on, monitoring the butterflies and deterring illegal loggers, for more than three decades.
The village of Macheros; Cerro Pelón is the tallest peak on the right.
Ellen Sharp
“When my dad got the job as a forest ranger, it changed our lives,” says Joel Moreno Rojas, the fourth-born of Melquiades’s 10 children. His father’s steady income brought the family out of poverty and afforded the children the chance to go to school. It also instilled a sense of local pride and inspired his family’s commitment to caring for the natural wonder at their doorstep.
Among the Moreno siblings, three have continued their father’s legacy: Joel, Anayeli, and sixth-born Patricio (“Pato”). Pato took over Melquiades’s forest ranger position after his dad’s retirement in 2014. When the monarchs are roosting in Cerro Pelón, roughly from November to March, he spends many days near the overwintering colonies, monitoring them and asking visitors not to disturb the impressive clusters. The butterflies, which have migrated thousands of miles from the eastern part of the United States, are drawn to the oyamel canopy—which provides insulation and keeps out the elements—for their winter rest. “I love it,” says the father of two. “It’s the most marvellous thing that could have happened in my life to have a job like this.”
Pato Moreno at work in Cerro Pelón after a rainstorm
Ellen Sharp
Being among hundreds of thousands of butterflies sparks such an intense emotional reaction that the Moreno siblings say it is impossible to name. When they do find the words, they describe experiencing the monarchs as powerful, beautiful, and emotional. Joel has seen visitors drop to their knees and pray or break out in tears when they first see the butterflies, who some locals believe are the souls of their ancestors, since the migrating monarchs arrive in Macheros right around the first of November, el Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.
“As Mexicans, we should all be proud of the butterflies,” Pato continues. “I’d like everyone to understand the value of the forest, because it helps us and it helps the butterflies.”
