TGIF
I recently read an interesting article on the migration pattern of the Monarch butterfly and decided to share it with you. According to the US Forest Service – The annual migration of North America’s monarch butterfly is a unique and amazing phenomenon. The monarch is the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration as birds do…. as it cannot survive the cold winters of northern climates. Using environmental clues, the monarchs know when it is time to travel south for the winter. Monarchs use a combination of air currents and thermals to travel long distances. Some fly as far as 3,000 miles to reach their winter home.
Monarchs in Eastern North America have a second home in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. Monarchs in Western North America overwinter in California. Monarchs roost for the winter in oyamel fir forests at an elevation of 8,000 to 12,000 feet (nearly 2 miles above sea level). The mountain hillsides are ideal for the butterflies where temperatures range from 32 to 60 degrees. If the temperature is lower, the monarchs are forced to use their fat reserves. The humidity in the forest assures the monarchs won’t dry out allowing them to conserve their energy.
Monarchs cluster together to stay warm. Tens of thousands of monarchs can cluster on a single tree. Although a monarch only weighs about half an ounce, tens of thousands of them weigh a lot. Oyamel trees are ideal to support the clustering butterflies.
There are so many more interesting details I could share about the migration of monarch butterflies, such as how all the monarchs from the east and midwest US tend to converge in a single area in central Texas to complete their journey into Mexico. For more information, you can go to the US Forest Service website at https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/Monarch_Butterfly/migration/index.shtml .
Genesis 1:21 – So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
I am so fascinated with how God created all the earth and the detail he provided to offer life to all the creatures of the earth and how they each have their distinctive modes of survival. Then of course we need to consider how God extended His creation to mankind.
Genesis 1:26-28 – Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Of course, we all know that man is the only form of life that is created in God’s image and has the ability to think and reason above all the other creatures in His world.
Psalm 139:13-14 – For You created my innermost parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, because I am awesomely and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
The question we should ask in today’s dysfunctional world is whether people can really reflect on and accept that there is only one way our world can have been created with all its interrelated intricacies, and that is through our sovereign God. The creation of the world and its resulting history until Jesus’ appearance on earth in the Old Testament along with the documentation of the life of Jesus and the formation of the Christian church in the New Testament are so fully documented and clear in the Bible! Furthermore, all that reported history is still relevant over 2,000 years later in today’s world!
Jeremiah 8:7 – Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
This scripture makes clear to us that the instinct of the migratory birds leads them with unfailing regularity to return home every spring from their winter homes. However, mankind seems to be drifting further away from the evident truth that we all will face when it is our time to be judged as we move on to our eternal home.
Are you ready? Are your family and loved ones ready? Is your chosen family and everyone in your orbit of life ready for eternity? I hope and pray that this is the case indeed!