Massachusetts Butterfly Club

The Spring meeting of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club was held at Mass Audubon's Broad Meadow Brook in Worcester on Saturday, April 5th. Eighteen members and guests joined us in-person and nineteen more joined us on Zoom. There were some "technical issues" again but Dave Small was able to beat them down.

This writer wasn't there but we heard the food was good. Special thanks to Barbara Volkle for bringing a hot dish to share.

The potluck dinner was followed by our brief business meeting.
Barbara Volkle gave a membership report. We currently have 167 members which include 19 in our grace period.
Kristin Steinmetz discussed the field trips for this year. The list is on our website now. See the left menu link for 2025 Schedule. If anyone would like to lead a field trip they can contact Kristin Steinmetz.

Michael Newton gave an update on the "state of Massachusetts butterflies" the he and Garry Kessler are working on. He presented charts that showed, for three butterflies, the frequency of butterflies by town over several recent years. Their hope is to increase both frequency and completeness of reporting, and the areas covered, to get our butterfly population data to more accurately reflect its current state, lending usefulness to its comparison to historical data.

Click on the image to the left to see a list of towns that have not had reported sightings since 2019 or before.

Our guest speaker was Amy Meltzer.

Amy is co-chair of the steering committee of the Mass Pollinator Network, is an active member of Grow Native Massachusetts, and is on the Research Team of Elders Climate Action. She has been researching and growing native plants for over twelve years.

Her presentation, "Beyond Flowering Plants: Helping Pollinators Thrive Year Round ", included a brief introduction to the biodiversity crisis, explaining why providing habitat for pollinators is essential for maintaining a sustainable ecosystem. Amy showed that pollinators not only need flowering native plants as food for adults, but also need specialized native plants that provide food for their young. She talked about the kinds of shelter needed year round for pollinator health and reproduction, and how to manage your landscape to provide it. She also discussed the need for water and the importance of minimizing night light. She shared extensive resources on choosing and sourcing native plants and managing our landscapes to support biodiversity, as well as tips on organizing in your community to create pollinator habitat outside of private gardens.
To see the recording of the presentation, click on the following link
Beyond Flowering Plants: Helping Pollinators Thrive Year Round
and enter the passcode: +9zdAw@%

Many thanks to all who brought food and helped with set-up and clean up.

Special thanks to Dave Small. Without his technical support, the presentation would not be possible.