Monarch butterflies are currently passing through the area on their seasonal migration south for the winter. Join the town of Black Mountain for two exciting monarch events hosted by Emily Sampson:

Saturday October 1st - Monarch Tagging Event (All welcome)

Meet at the Dr. Wilson community garden parking lot at 10:30 am. We will first take some time to walk around the waystation and discuss the plantings and pollinator activity there and to tag monarchs in the community garden and at the monarch waystation. Then we will be going up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to visit a few known spots to view and possibly tag more migrating monarchs. The caravan for the parkway will leave at 11:30am. Plan to bring a picnic lunch, and we will stop at the Mount Pisgah Picnic area to eat before heading on to a few other overlooks between Cherry Cove (MP 415.7) and Caney Fork (MP 428). Also bring binoculars, plenty of water, and a light jacket as it's often much cooler up on the Parkway. Rain date will be Sunday Oct. 2nd. Check your email in the case of bad weather. Pictures from last year's parkway monarch Migration Visit are posted in the Facebook event. We were lucky enough to see hundreds. Hopefully we will catch them again! You can follow the monarch migration maps on Journey North to know when to expect them in our area.

Saturday Oct 8th - Primary School Pollinator Garden Planting (community welcome)

9:30 am to 12:30pm

We will be planting the landscape beds in front of the Black Mountain Primary School with native pollinator plants. Bring a hand trowel/shovel and box cutter if you have one (for cutting into landscape fabric). I have included pictures of the bed to be planted in our Facebook event. It's a big job and we would love some volunteer help! I have also included some photos of this year's monarch caterpillar rearing with Primary School 3rd graders. Each class has 2 caterpillars that we will be tagging and releasing. We can check on the caterpillars and possibly see some adults hatching on planting day depending on timing.

Check out some of the best local places to view monarch migration!