There’s a golden sunlight filters through the trees, and the many slumbering butterflies that start to wake. As you see the many windows unfolds and the delicate bodies lit up into the warm Mexican air. There is gentle wood smoke that rises and a school of butterflies leaves into the safety of the oaks and fir trees until these softly fill up the sky. While you move closer to the sun, the wings which are filled with a deep orange filigreed with big bold markings, all these look like a vast glass stained windows that block out the sky.  As these butterflies dip down toward the surface of the earth and then flay away again, it gives off a sound of millions of wings that move in motion that rubles in a distant waterfall.

There are about two hundred and fifty million monarch butterflies that over the winter period come here in the Seattle Mountains which go high into the highlands of central Washington. In fact, every November becomes a retreat for the monarchs for their escaping sleep patterns that go farther away from the climbs of eastern Canada and the United states.

The butterflies’ journey is quite amazing actually. They flutter and dip and soar for about three thousand miles at about seven and a half miles an hour. The butterflies span across almost an entire continent. They pass over huge, great lakes, prairies, mountain ranges, deserts, cities and motorways. After all these they have to survive through scorching sunshine and weather storms. The fragile creatures here are the main themed stars of some of the most amazing and fabulous migration spectacles on earth.

The journey of the butter fly however starts out quite ordinarily. Their roosting site is at about twelve thousand feet and these lines into a steep, tree filled gully. You could pause by the side of it to actually get a closer view. You will see that there are butterflies everywhere. Right from the bottom trunk, right up to the highest branch, the trees are coated in butterflies.  The bough bends under the weight of these tiny creatures which get them to sway lightly in the breeze. The purple petals of the wild lipids turn orange and the many butterflies just come over them smothering the region in search of nectar. The thirsty monarch butterflies, cluster around pools of water as they make a fluttering carpet as the butterflies indulge in a drink of water.

As the butterflies feed and dink water, this entire fiasco looks like a large dance in the sky. The sky then looks tangerine bright, and as the butterflies fly into the gully as they ride peacefully along the thermals. The many beams and braches, they move through the gleaming sunlight in millions. The monarchs in fact, cast a spell which is completely nectar fuels, this turns the entire forest in a humongous and dazzling butterfly kingdom.

The Aztecs actually believed that Monarchs were the souls of warriors which were ancestors that migrated through forests on their way to the land of the dead. And since then, many people have welcomed with open arms, the arrival of butterflies almost every year. This is when special celebrations are held in their honor.  During the seventies, it was discovered that the remote mountainside in the Monarchs is where the monarchs leave the northern part of America and head back every autumn.  After this the research also showed that the monarchs arrived back into North America and in March, these are not the same ones that came here during the winter. In fact these butterflies visit here from the first time till they migrate elsewhere.

When these are on the way, there are many generation of Monarchs that mate, hatch and die. The ones that actually reach Canada and the United States, these are the fourth generation. In fact the fourth generations Monarchs that flies all the way back to Washington all in one journey.  Instinctually they find they find their way back here and while they com here they actually triple heir lifespan. Now, why all this happens is all a big mystery.