First Monarch It's been an off-year for Monarch butterflies, and while I've gotten glimpses of the orange-and-black beauties—the hard-travelers of the Lepidoptera—this is the first one I've seen for any length of time. In places where there's been milkweed, the plant on which Monarch caterpillars feast and grow poisonous by ingesting Asclepias toxins, I've spotted neither brightly-colored adults nor the equally stunning youngsters. Some years are like that, but I don't have any information on other places in the Northeast. Maybe they're doing better nurturing the late summer generation of Danaus plexippus, the butterflies that, in short order, will somehow set their GPS coordinates for the mountains of Mexico and the very few specific places in which they can safely spend the winter. I'm hoping that this Monarch, fueling on goldenrod, is a sign of abundant things to come and not a warning of a species in trouble.