The Sound of Millions of Monarch Butterflies Migrating

Monarch butterflies are widely regarded as one of the most beautiful insect species on the planet, but have you ever wondered how they sound like?

A single, fragile butterfly hardly makes a peep, but when they all flap their wings together, they make an amazing symphony. The question is posed by Phil Torres of The Jungle Diaries YouTube channel.

“How many butterflies does it take to make a noise in the woods?”

The answer is a few million, and he documents the whole thing on film.

Monarch butterflies migrate in large numbers each winter, bringing millions of them to California and Mexico. Torres' interesting film shows how a swarm of butterflies collected into clusters on the trees in a Mexican forest, covering entire leaves, branches, and even the trunks.

One of the first things you notice when you arrive in this section of Mexico and glance down to get your bearings is the thousands of butterflies that have made the 1500-mile journey down here only to perish during the winter.

It's easy to get upset about this, but if you glance up and see what you're surrounded by, you'll notice that it's not so bad.

Tangled tangles dangling from the branches are not pine cones or leaves, as you can see if you look closely.

All of those butterflies are monarchs.

And all of that fluff on the tree trunks are--- butterflies! Amazing isn't it?

A single tree trunk can have tens of thousands of monarchs on it.

This cluster of butterflies is too cold to fly in the morning. Butterflies, like other insects, are ectothermic, which means that their metabolism and energy are entirely dependent on the heat of the sun.

So they willingly wait for the sun to shine on them and warm them up, and they will sit and wait with them.

With this recorder, we can hear the sound of millions of Monarch Butterflies flying around, almost like a "waterfall."

Let us discover more about them! Now that they are receiving sunlight, they are absorbing that energy in need to survive.

They go down to the wildflowers and drink the nectar, then mate.

These monarch butterflies are having a wonderful year; their numbers are up to 140% from last year, and while that's still a long way from where they were just two decades ago, it shows their tenacity if we just give them a little aid, so what can we do then?

Planting native milkweed and wildflowers is a great place to start, but we also need to restore their habitat across North America so that they can not only survive the winter here, but also the entire spring, summer, and fall that they spend in the United States and Canada. For now, I'll leave you with this thought: hearing the sound of millions of monarch butterflies flying around is a world treasure and we need to protect this incredible species for generations to come.

Watch and listen to Torres' video below, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more nature-themed content!

Source: The Jungle Diaries

About the Writers:

Maina Zaina, Writer and a Virtual Assistant at AVCreativity Studio. She enjoys media entertainment and is an avid fan of "K-Wave". She loves her job because she is exposed to different types of entertainment. She also believes in the saying "If you want to be successful, don't seek success - seek competence, empowerment; do nothing short of the best that you can do" by Jaggi Vasudev

Pamela Elizabeth, Editor-in-Chief at AVCreativity Studio. Earned a Bachelor’s Degree of Secondary Education Major in English. She loves going on little adventures alongside reading good books. She is enthusiastic about her work and ensures that her clients receive the finest service possible.