[Pollinator] NY Times Article: In Texas, Monarchs Flutter And Admirals Alight

[Jennifer Tsang]

In Texas, Monarchs Flutter And Admirals Alight 


By ELAINE GLUSAC 

Published: January 12, 2007

MEXICAN blue wing butterflies defy stereotype. They prefer shade to
sunlight. They are dark, not bright. They seek tree bark, rather than
blooms. And they are one of the reasons Mel and Maris Midgley traveled from
Gloucestershire, England, to southern Texas and the Lower Rio Grande Valley.


''You can walk right up to them,'' said Ms. Midgley as she displayed a vivid
image of the blue wing on her digital camera. ''You can't do that with a
bird.'' 

Indeed, it is the kingfishers, green jays, kiskadees and other birds that
thrive along the Rio Grande that make this 275-mile stretch of the river a
prime destination for nature lovers. Some 500 bird species have been sighted
in the four-county region, making it the most concentrated area in the
United States for birds, according to experts. To a growing number of
eco-tourists, the region is also the center of butterflying. Of the 700
varieties found in the United States, 300 alight here. 

As rich as the region is for birders and butterfliers, some naturalists say
the area is now threatened because of the border fence legislation signed in
late October by President Bush to help curb illegal immigration. The details
on just what such a fence would look like have not been made public yet, but
environmentalists and people who depend on nature tourism, which brings an
estimated $125 million to the area annually, are concerned. 

''A physical fence on the river doesn't make sense because the river is so
winding, and it would eliminate the last remnant of the native riparian
forest down here,'' said Keith Hackland, a local naturalist, noting that in
some places the green corridor is only 50 to 100 feet wide. ''Even if birds
and butterflies could fly over, they would have nowhere to fly to.'' 

Possible threats to the environment notwithstanding, the North American
Butterfly Association is continuing to expand its flagship butterfly park in
the Lower Rio Grande Valley town of Mission. ''This is the only place they
could put a park like this,'' said Sue Sill, executive director of the park,
which opened in 2002. ''We have butterflies 12 months of the year and see
more butterflies than anywhere else.'' 

Monarchs and the similar species known as queens, crepe-paperlike yellow
sulfurs, large black swallowtails and ornate red admirals swarm the
five-foot-tall purple-flowered crucita bushes that have been planted on five
acres of rehabilitated cotton and sorghum fields at the NABA International
Butterfly Park. In the next two years, the organization expects to build a
visitors' center designed by architect Wendy Evans Joseph and to replant
more of the 100 acres it has acquired for the park. Already it's a
destination for butterfliers like the Midgleys, who are former birders. 

''Most birders appreciate beautiful things. It's easy to turn them onto
something like this,'' Mr. Midgley said. ''And you don't have to get up as
early.'' 

Whereas birding is usually best at dawn and dusk, midday is prime time for
viewing heat-loving butterflies. Late fall and winter are high season in
southern Texas because butterfly migration and greater rainfall help the
flowers that provide food for many species. Any butterfly safari here
inevitably involves sharing the wild with birders, as my 7-year-old son,
Seth, and I discovered in November. We signed up for a canoe trip on the Rio
Grande along a stretch protected by the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge
with Mr. Hackland and Cheryl Longton, a park volunteer guide. 

''There are so many butterflies now it's distracting,'' Ms. Longton said as
we passed the park's butterfly garden. 

''That makes it hard to bird,'' said Allison Hilf, a birder from Denver in
the group. 

THE rio might have once been grand, but dams upriver have narrowed it
considerably, to less than 200 feet wide in some places and as shallow as a
foot in parts. Still, as the river wound through native forest of old-growth
oaks festooned in Spanish moss and banks of tall riverside reeds, it seemed
exotic beside the fields of kale and cabbage that bordered the reserve.
Herons -- great blue, tricolored, green and night -- perched on downed limbs
and flew away only when we came too near. Green and ringed kingfishers
crisscrossed our canoes. There were periods of manic activity, when hundreds
of dragonflies would patrol the river or flocks of swallows would swoop at
insect hatches. Where flowering vines cascaded down from the trees,
butterflies perched, warming their wings in the morning sun. 

Hot-orange Julias and the cloisonné underwings of gulf fritillaries stood
out boldly against the foliage, while small, brown American snouts and pale
white peacocks hovered over the water. 

''Temperate meets tropical here, both in terms of vegetation and climate,''
Mr. Hackland said, noting that the Fish and Wildlife Service has identified
11 distinct biological communities in the region. ''Butterflies are a good
indicator of that. You don't get great varieties without diverse vegetation.
We have huge diversity here, including semidesert, riparian tropical forest,
freshwater and saltwater. It's biologically one of the most diverse areas in
the United States.'' 

An emerald green malachite butterfly, the kind of quarry butterfliers buzz
about, flew over our van as it crested the levee, towing the canoes back to
the visitors' center. ''This is what the rest of Texas looks like,'' Ms.
Longton said, indicating the flat fields opposite the levee. ''Only 5
percent of the natural habitat is left.'' 

The Santa Ana refuge is part of a larger plan by Fish and Wildlife to string
together nature preserves along the river to provide a wildlife corridor not
only for birds and butterflies but for the endangered ocelot and other
native animals. So far, 40,000 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National
Wildlife Refuge are open to the public en route to an envisioned 132,500
acres bordering the final 275 miles of the river from Falcon Dam south to
the Gulf of Mexico. But the entire project, critics say, is threatened by
the proposed immigration fence. 

''Most people here are against it for social reasons. You don't want to put
up a fence to keep out the neighbors,'' said Martin Hagne, director of the
Valley Nature Center in Weslaco. ''It could wipe out all that habitat it has
taken 20 years to develop.'' 

While specific designs for the fence remain a mystery, the Secure Fence Act
calls for it to be completed by 2008 and for the Lower Rio Grande Valley
portion to run from Laredo to Brownsville. 

Jarrod Agen, a spokesman in Washington for the Department of Homeland
Security, said yesterday that the agency would consider the concerns of
environmentalists in any decision about the form of the wall, adding that
cameras and sensors might prove more effective in a rural area. ''We are
looking at a mix of physical barriers as well as technology to have have
full surveillance of the border,'' he said. 

Mr. Hagne and some other environmentalists are hoping the barrier will
indeed be some type of virtual fence made up of electronic surveillance
devices that would preserve the habitat, rather than a solid wall or fence,
which, if built on the shore, might require clearing vegetation for patrol
paths. 

In one of the nation's fastest growing regions, eco-advocates already fight
developers and agricultural interests for space. Butterflying and birding
there require hopscotching from one nature preserve to the next in a central
core of communities over 30 miles, from Mission in the west to Weslaco in
the east, with the busy McAllen at the center. Vast farm fields and RV parks
buffer sights that include the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, the Valley Nature
Center, Quinta Mazatlan and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, where we
attended an evening ''owl prowl'' in search of nocturnal black witch moths
and foraging javalina. 

We found the navigating a do-it-yourselfers' dream, but the education was
far greater when joined by Mr. Hackland, who correctly identified the least
grebes, which we took for small ducks, differentiated the tawny emperor
butterfly from the white peacock and picked out a great barbecue joint,
Willie's, near Santa Ana. 

Meanwhile, the local interest in wild things is expanding from birds to
butterflies and, lately, to dragonflies. ''People start out with birds,''
observed Shane Mooneyham, a naturalist at Estero Llano Grande State Park in
Weslaco, where we spot a bright red Needham's skimmer dragonfly in addition
to a swallowtail butterfly. ''When they've seen all they can see, they go to
butterflies. Then, dragonflies. It's the next natural pretty insect.'' 

Correction: January 19, 2007, Friday An article last Friday about observing
butterflies in the Lower Rio Grande Valley misstated the trees that are hung
with Spanish moss there. Many indigenous trees, including species of elm and
ash, have Spanish moss there, but oaks are not among them.

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