Friends of the Monarch Trail rock the County Grounds!

After a promising day of broken sunshine, the clouds piled up and grew ominously dark as over a hundred Friends of the Monarch Trail gathered to celebrate. The large turnout in the face of uncertain weather was testimony in itself to the excitement that the impending annual Monarch migration can generate, as well as the importance of the County Grounds to the public.

There were lively Irish tunes played by Ceol Cairde. “Butterfly Barb” gave an informative tour of the trail that winds along the west edge of the grounds an around the historic Eschweiler buildings to where the Monarchs prefer to roost during their migratory wandering between Canada and Mexico.

Unfortunately, the moon did not make its scheduled appearance. However, just as things dusk began to get really dim, the western sky opened a crack to enable the sun to blaze through and provide the crowd with a satisfying conclusion to the evening, as you can see from the photos I managed to get. And there was a delightful bonus to top it all off: an early platoon of Monarchs showed up to roost. A good omen for this year’s migration!

Thanks to “butterfly” Barb Agnew and her stalwart crew for organizing this wonderful event! To keep up to date on the progress of this year’s migration check the Monarch Trail website regularly. I can testify to the fact that they are easy to miss if you don’t get out there on the right day.

The multicolored sky dwarfs the Eschweiler buildings

on the County Grounds in Wauwatosa

To see more images of the Milwaukee County Grounds, go to my flickr page or my website.