Giving monarchs an assist

In New York, monarch butterflies begin their annual fall migration in mid-August. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, they travel between 1,200 and 2,800 miles or more from the northeast United States and southeast Canada to the mountain forests in central Mexico, where they find the right climate conditions to hibernate from the beginning of November to mid-March.

As adult monarch butterflies live only about four to five weeks, the ones seen during this fall are the great-great-grandchildren of the ones that migrated to Mexico last fall the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said.

Here are some ways to help monarchs get ready for their long trek:

* Turn a portion of your lawn into a wildflower meadow to provide food (nectar) — plant milkweed or other native wildflowers.

* Delay mowing areas with milkweed until later in the fall.

* Avoid using pesticides as they kill all life-stages of monarchs, from egg to caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult.

* Report sightings of adults or caterpillars on line at https://journeynorth.org/reg/

* View a map of sightings so far this year at https://shorturl.at/fc69R. Caterpillars have already been spotted across the northeastern U.S.

Have you seen a small green pod about an inch-long? This is a monarch caterpillar (larva) after it enters the pupa stage and is now in a chrysalis. If you do see one, try not to disturb it. They will find a safe place, often under a milkweed leaf, to enter this stage in their development, which lasts about 9 to 14 days. Sometimes they will pupate hanging under eaves, decks, other garden plants, or even on window screens.

For more monarch facts, log www.worldwildlife.org/species/monarch-butterfly.