Press Digest 19 December 2006

ONE IN 600 MILLION…
MEXICO’S MONARCHS

Prepare to be mesmerised by up to 600 million Monarch butterflies gathering to overwinter in the highlands of central Mexico. Natural history specialists Naturetrek offer a 9-day holiday to coincide with this spectacle, departing 2nd February 2007.

The pre-Aztec city of Teotihuacán is the first base on tour. Here, encounters with birds such as Vermilion Flycatcher and Inca Dove are likely while exploring the huge ‘Pyramid of the Sun’ and its smaller ‘Pyramid of the Moon’. Drive west for the main focus of the tour, butterflies. In the Mexican province of Michoacan in an area of cool pine forests, huge gatherings of Monarch butterflies come together in a fluttering blizzard of orange and black, resting in such numbers that branches bend and even break under their weight. This breathtaking spectacle takes place every winter when the entire North American population of Monarch butterflies (east of the Rockies) migrates south to over-winter in a few pockets of forest. Here they spend the cool nights crowded onto every available inch of branch and leaf, then, as the day warms, stream out in their millions to feed in the surrounding fields. Surprisingly, despite the apparent feast, opportunist birds such as Slate-throated Redstart and Blue Mockingbird, stay well clear of the Monarchs as the brightly coloured butterflies are toxic to most avian species. Spend two nights at Rancho San Cayetano and visit the El Capulin Monarch Sanctuary before heading to the Valle de Bravo, a typical Mexican town, with narrow cobbled streets and colonial-style houses on the shores of the Laguna de Avandaro. The nearby Piedra Herrada Butterfly Sanctuary is also teeming with Monarchs and avian species such as Long-billed Thrasher and Bumblebee Hummingbird.

The tour costs £1,895 p/p including scheduled flights, full board accommodation in comfortable hotels and lodges, and an accompanying Naturetrek lepidopterist guide.