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Audubon staff, volunteers collecting monarch eggs

Submitted Photo Milkweed is the only food Monarch Butterfly caterpillars eat. Audubon Community Nature Center staff and volunteers are busy searching milkweed for Monarch eggs that they will raise for the late August Monarch Butterfly Festival. Visitors will be able to see these fascinating creatures in their egg, larva, pupa, and adult stages.

JAMESTOWN — Audubon Community Nature Center’s (ACNC) staff and volunteers have already raised and released dozens of butterflies this summer.

Now they are collecting eggs that will be raised for Audubon’s Monarch Butterfly Festival in late August. These eggs will hatch and grow to be part of the migration generation that heads to Mexico.

The Festival offers much to do — great food, photo opportunities with human-sized caterpillar and butterfly cutouts, fun patches to earn — but the real stars are the butterflies.

Visitors experience an indoor garden filled with free-flying Monarchs, where they can examine Monarch eggs, hold caterpillars and butterflies and possibly even see one emerge from its chrysalis.

Senior Naturalist and Festival Coordinator Jeff Tome is leading the search for Monarch eggs that will develop into the stages that fascinate visitors.

Tome says, “Monarchs seem to have arrived in the area earlier than in the past several years. Eggs and caterpillars were being found in late May this year instead of mid to late June.” Some local Monarch Watchers have said that Monarchs came through much earlier than any recorded date they have.

Monarchs and Margaritas, an adult version of the festival, is on Friday evening, Aug. 25, prior to the Saturday event for all ages.

Details are at auduboncnc.org/monarchfestival.

Wegmans is a major sponsor of the Monarch Butterfly Festival. Additional sponsors are Frewsburger Pizza Shop, Lena’s Pizza, Native Roots, and Frewsburg Flower Farm. To learn how an individual or a business can be a sponsor, visit auduboncnc.org/sponsor.

Located at 1600 Riverside Road, one-quarter mile east of Route 62 between Jamestown and Warren, Audubon Community Nature Center has more than five miles of beautifully maintained trails. Open daily, its three-story building contains interactive displays, a collection of live animals, and the Blue Heron Gift Shop. One of the most visited exhibits is Liberty, a non-releasable bald eagle housed in her outdoor habitat behind the Nature Center. To learn more about ACNC and its many programs, call 569-2345 during business hours or visit auduboncnc.org.

Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature by providing positive outdoor experiences, opportunities to learn about and understand the natural world, and knowledge to act in environmentally responsible ways.

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