Day 46: milkweed rising

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OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!

monarch's milkweed blooms soon  

Quarantine Day 46: You are staying at home maintaining your social distancing. That's good. And we are exploring the woods, creeks, soggy bottoms and vacant lots to see where nature is happening.

A cold rain moved in while our man-on-the-waterfront was exploring the riparian buffer of the Tennessee River southside and discovered a colony of common milkweed (Asclepias syriace) a plant that was considered a weed until the decline of the monarch butterfly raised its profile. Now it's beloved.

Common milkweed is the host plant of choice for the orange-and-black butterfly that migrates to Mexico in the fall and back in the spring.

Journey North is reporting that some monarchs have been reported in the valley. Our man checked for eggs or larva and found none. 

Declining monarch numbers have garnered so much attention that efforts across the country to grow milkweed may be increasing their overall population.

Now, what are we going to do to save all the other thousands of species of bugs in jeopardy? There's an up to a 70% decline across the board in many worldwide locations as National Geographic reports in this month's issue.

This is bad. No way to sugar coat it. It's bad.   

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