The familiar and striking orange-and-black monarch butterfly is always a welcome and refreshing site on warm, lazy summer days.  Its beauty seems to belie its toxicity — as caterpillars feeding only on milkweed plants, they pick up a protective toxin that can poison bird predators.  But the bright colours have probably evolved to advertize exactly that fact to birds.  There’s no point being poisonous to your predators if they have to devour you to find out!

Equally striking is the monarch’s unique and fantastic voyage of migration each fall.  In fall, from across eastern Canada and the U.S., adult monarchs take flight, heading south to central Mexico to over-winter in cool, mountain fir forests.  As widespread as they are in summer, the butterflies only wintering range comprises a handful of tiny hilltops.  Canadians Fred and Norah Urquhart led the discovery of these locations, through pioneering the wing-tagging of the butterflies in their summer range.

Four Wings and a Prayer is the wonderfully filmed story of this unbelievable migration, tracing the route, perils and delights of the journey.  Having met the Urquharts, visited the Mexican sanctuaries, and helped with monarch conservation for two decades, I was pleased with the balance of beauty and biology, conservation and culture, that the film portrays.  Building on Sue Halpern’s captivating book of the same name, Four Wings and a Prayer is the best of several monarch movies I have seen.

A few years ago, I had the chance to offer some early advice to director Nick de Pencier, as he began his monarch film project.  He connected with WWF in Mexico, interviewing the project director in the film.  Recently, Nick told me how impressed he was with WWF’s monarch conservation work and dedication of staff there, though many challenges still remain.

CBC’s documentary channel is offering Four Wings and a Prayer on Feb 2 at 10 AM and 3 PM.  Check for details and listings through the National Film Board.

PBS’s NOVA series offers a shorter, on-line, re-edited version, under the name The Incredibe Journey of the Butterflies, along with an interview with director Nick de Pencier.

As you watch in mid-winter, remember it’s still cool in hilly central Mexico; yet by early March, the butterly flocks get restless, soon to start their mysterious migration northward and re-populate their summer range.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 12:20 PM and is filed under Animals, International, Species, WWF, conservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.