🦋Join us to celebrate the return of the monarchs, as they migrate up from the south! 🗓️Sunday May 24, 2026 🕰️ 1 – 4 pm
🏫 Visit the Griffith Depot & Train Museums (everything will be open to view!) and enjoy our Monarch Waystation garden! 🦋Learn about Monarchs, their amazing migration, & how they’ve become endangered. Jeanette Bobos, the retired Master Gardner who planted our garden, will be on on hand to share her knowledge. 🐝Learn about adding native plants to your garden. 🌻Buy plants that help butterflies, especially monarchs! We’ll have a small selection of milkweed plants & other native plants.
The monarch butterflies fluttering about aren’t just casual flutterers. They are the last to be born in 2025, and they are ‘super monarchs.’
Right now, they are busy sipping up nectar they, so as to build up fat reserves in their bodies. You see, these particular butterflies were born to do a seemly impossible job.
They, and millions of other super monarchs, fly 1200 miles to a fir tree forest in central Mexico between August and November. And the continuation of their existence in the northeastern states depends upon their safe arrival.
These butterflies do have some ‘super powers’ to help them accomplish their task.
– Because of this journey, a super monarch will live far longer than the 2 to 5 weeks normal monarch butterflies do. – These butterflies are born with larger wings and are capable of flying 50 to 100 miles in a single day, weather permitting. – It is believed they were born with an internal sun compass or magnetic compass to guide them to Central America. – They can fly at speeds of 5 to 25 miles an hour for 4-6 hours a day, gliding on currents of warm air called thermals, to conserve energy when possible.
At the end of each day of their journey, the butterflies will seek out nectar from the flowers to fuel their next-day trip. Once that is accomplished, they will spend the night in trees, clustered together for protection.
It will take the monarchs who leave from Indiana 5 to 7 weeks to make the trip to that Mexican forest Oyamel fir tree forest.
Once there, they, and millions of other super monarchs, will blanket the fir trees for warmth and to conserve energy. Thereafter, they will enter a state of dormancy, allowing them to survive the winter.
We wish all these spectacular insects a safe trip.
🦋Join us in May 2026 to celebrate these incredible creatures at our 2nd Annual Butterfly Day at the Griffith Historical Park, featuring our Monarch Waystation, the Griffith Junction Butterfly Stop.
(If you come visit our Monarch Waystation at the Depot, we ask that you do so respectfully. Please don’t touch the plants, insects, or disturb the habitat in any way. Thank you!)
• The Barrel Train will NOT be running • The Depot and Train Musems WILL be open • Our flower & butterfly experts will be inside • The rest of the fun will be inside!
𝗪𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘:
𝑩𝑼𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑭𝑳𝒀 𝑫𝑨𝒀 𝑰𝑺 𝑶𝑵!!
Griffith History Museums 