Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 30, 2021

A million monarchs

I assume Colchester Creek is a very small stream in Michigan. However, the only Colchester Creeks known to Google or Google Maps are streets, mostly in Atlanta. When I tried to force Google Maps by entering “Colchester Creek, Michigan”, it went nuts and served up total garbage.

We got to see her learn how to spell m-i-l-l-i-o-n.

I do hope the whale doesn’t find itself a hundred miles up and falling.

Strange—earlier today I saw this question posted on Quora.

I can handle either or choices. Sometimes. What I really hate are the “What is your favorite (category)”. I love LOTS of colors (individually and in groups), I’m a huge fan of SEVERAL flavors, I really like bugs, snakes, birds, mammals and ETs… and lots of kinds of plants. Fungi too. I’m extremely fond of several academic pursuits… and my favorite body type is “present”.

As for this one, I’d rather see the Monarchs, really, having seen a whale of a lot of whales in person, but hardly ever more than a few monarchs except by video.

I’ve seen more than one whale and I’ve been to the monarch butterfly grove in Santa Cruz. There weren’t 1 million butterflies there, I think the count is usually closer to 100,000.

As long as Caulfield doesn’t have to exert a great deal of effort (and as long as no one gets hurt): “Bring” the whale to Caulfield.

I’d rather see attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

All the fishing fleet boats that we had here until the 1980s had a registration like CK 213 or CK 742. The CK stood for Colchester Creek. That’s the British Colchester just upriver from where I live. Sadly it’s some else that was destroyed and we no longer have a fishing fleet. Probably no fish either these days.

A million monarchs.

Bucket list for me is Veracruz Mexico in October. During the Broadwinged Hawk migration, they sometimes have as many as 350,000 raptors fly over in one day. A 15,000 bird day is considered to be a bit of a disappointment.

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-mexicans-recovery-monarch-butterflies.html

We lived within driving distance of Pacific Grove and Santa Cruz in California. We made a point of going to see the Monarchs at least once a year. And sometimes we would hit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and could see their displays on whales and other marine animals live in the water. Otters were the coolest.

What would you rather see, a million butterfly-sized whales or one whale-sized butterfly?

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The first person to say “Mothra” gets swatted upside the head with a newspaper.

I’d like to see a million monarch (butterflies). Last year in Mexico at the Monarch migration they saw about 1000. They’re nearly extinct.

Been wondering about the Monarchs and other species that might have been pushed off their migration flyways by huge western fires. Seems with west flowing winds, the smoke and ash would force them to reroute their course toward the Miss and beyond, but don’t know if there would be sufficient food and shelter. Could have a truly devastating effect on future populations.

Of course, I have emailed this query to one of the worldwide conservation agencies of which I am a member but have never received an acknowledgement, much less an actual reply. Thought it would be high on their lists.

Butterfly migrations are much more impressive and prettier than some big mammal you can only see a bit of.