Third Sightings at Sierra Chincua


We had a beautiful sunny day to explore the monarch reserve at Sierra Chincua!

After visiting the school in Angangueo we headed to the monarch reserve at Sierra Chincua. We rode the bus to the base of the mountain and I decided to ride up on a horse. It was quite a trip. The trail is very bumpy with lots of large rocks. This didn't seem to bother the horses one bit! My horse was named Palomo. I paid 125 pesos to go up and down the mountain on a horse. Once we got to the top of the mountain we had to hike down a very steep incline to where we could view the large groups of monarchs. Along the way we saw many flying about. But once we got to where the majority of the butterflies were located it was simply magical!

Here I am with my horse at the top of the mountain. I saw a lot of the monarchs nectaring on many different flowers.

Many of them were basking in the rocky path and you had to be careful where you stepped. There were also many dead ones lying on the ground. What do you think caused them to die?

They were flying and landing in trees and on leaves of plants.

You can see them nectaring on two different types of flowers.

They were hanging on to the bark of a tree trunk and weighing down the limbs of a tree.

When the butterflies flew up into the sky you could hear their wings fluttering.

It was hard for all of us to decide which reserve was more inspiring. We know for sure that we want to do all that we can to preserve this area so that future generations can enjoy the monarchs. We did see evidence of logging at Sierra Chincua even though the army was there to guard the forest.

Posted: Thu - March 10, 2005 at 03:28 PM          

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