Monarch Butterfly with splints on wings.
Associated Press November 21, 2008 at 4:23 AM EST
LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. — A southern Adirondack couple used their skill at handicrafts, their homemade honey and their gumption to mend a monarch butterfly's wing, nurse it back to health and find it a ride to a warmer climate.
Jeannette Brandt spied the butterfly about three weeks ago when, out for a bike ride in rural Hadley, N.Y., about 70 kilometres north of Albany, she pulled over on the shoulder to take off her coat. Noticing the butterfly's broken wing, she poured out her water bottle and placed the butterfly inside it.
At home, she and her long-time partner, Mike Parwana, began nursing the butterfly, feeding it rotting pears and honey mixed with water. The pears came from a tree on their property. The honey came from the bees they keep.As the butterfly strengthened, they wondered whether they could fix its wing. They turned to the Internet, searching under "fixing a broken butterfly wing," and found a video posted by the Live Monarch Foundation, a non-profit group from Boca Raton, Fla.
"It was still weak. It was another week or so before it would fly," Mr. Parwana said.
They worried that the patch was too heavy, but as the butterfly fattened up on pear and honey, it started flapping around their house. Then, they worried the cat would get it. And they wondered what to do with their healthy monarch, since it was, by then, too cold to put it outside.
They called Elizabeth Morgan, better known as Bunny, the local butterfly lady, who suggested they find someone to carry it south. And that is how Ms. Brandt and Mr. Parwana came to be standing together on Sunday in Scotty's truck-stop restaurant in nearby Wilton, holding a shoebox, and calling out to ask whether anyone was heading south.
Mr. Parwana laughed. "And all these truckers looked down at their shoes," he said. "If you ever want to feel strange, walk into Scotty's and just put it out there that you want them to take a box south." The atmosphere lightened when they explained the cargo was a butterfly. A trucker from Alabama, on his way to Florida, raised his hand.
"He was very nice about it," Mr. Parwana said. "We sat down to have breakfast after we gave him the box. He came back 15 minutes later. He said, 'You want me to call you up after I let it out?' " "On Tuesday, they got the call. The butterfly was loose in Florida with its mended wing, free to join the tens of millions of other monarchs making their winter migration to the mountains of central Mexico.
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