Museum Butterfly Room is Haven for People Too
Butterfly Haven is just a few feet away from my Nature Museum photo exhibit
These Butterflies are Free to Fly
The Judy Istock Butterfly Haven at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is one of Chicago’s most amazing hideaways. On the second floor of the museum — which is located in Lincoln Park at Cannon Drive and Fullerton Avenue — the Haven is a tropical-like setting in which butterflies and moths flit about you. If you’re lucky, one may land on you (but don’t touch!).
As the Museum’s website puts it:
One walk through the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven is all you need to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.
Experience over 40 species of exotic, free-flying butterflies and several stunning bird species from the Southern hemisphere in our 2,700 square-foot greenhouse. Complete with serene pools of water, flowers, tropical trees, and 1,000 butterflies, it always feels like summer in the Butterfly Haven.
As you can see here, it is also an amazing photo opp for you nature lovers. And it is just down the hall from the brand-new exhibit of my nature photos, titled Life on the Pond, after North Pond, the bird sanctuary adjacent to the museum where I’ve been a nature paparazzo for many years. Several of the pictures in the exhibition feature monarch butterflies feasting on the flora around North Pond.
These photos are appropriate for Local Food Forum because butterflies are pollinators and thus play an important role in our food ecosystem. Here’s a passage from the National Park Service website that also shows the amazing way that nature has adapted Monarch butterflies to protect them from predators.
More than beautiful, monarch butterflies contribute to the health of our planet. While feeding on nectar, they pollinate many types of wildflowers. The flowers they choose are varieties that are brightly colored, grow in clusters, stay open during the day, and have flat surfaces that serve as landing pads for their tiny guests. Monarch butterflies are also an important food source for birds, small animals, and other insects.
The vivid markings of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) serves as a “skull and crossbones” warning, signaling “Poison!” to the butterfly’s predators. Female monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of poisonous milkweed leaves. As the caterpillar hatches, it eats its own egg; then switches to a diet of milkweed leaves. The milkweeds’ toxins remain permanently in the monarch’s system, even after the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. Animals that eat a monarch become very sick and, thereafter, will avoid this distinctively patterned butterfly.
But like many animal species, butterflies face serious challenges to their survival. The National Park Service lists three big ones for the Monarch butterfly:
Loss of milkweed plants
Although monarchs feed on the nectar of many flowers, they lay their eggs only on certain types of milkweed plants. Unfortunately, milkweeds are often eradicated as noxious weeds. Urbanization, industrialized, large-scale farms, and drought conditions have also resulted in significant plant loss.
Loss of winter habitat
The butterflies' winter habitat in Mexico and California is rapidly shrinking due to deforestation, harsh weather, development and other disruptions. Because all monarchs gather in only a few locations, the overall population is at risk.
Climate Change
Especially during the last decade, changes in climate have resulted in more out-of-season storms, severe temperature drops and excessive rain. The combination of both wet and cold is deadly and has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of butterflies.
If you are a gardener, you can help! The North American Butterly Association and Chicago Botanic Garden have excellent information about how to create and maintain a butterfly garden. You’ll not only be doing something better for the planet, but also bringing all this beauty into your life.
So visit the Life on the Pond photo exhibit, then enjoy the Butterfly Haven. Or vice versa. And check their website for wonderful activities for families and children.
And if you’re planning to visit, please let me know. We live only about a mile and a half from the museum, and I’d love to meet you there and show you around North Pond.
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is located at 2430 N. Cannon Dr. and is open every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The photo exhibit will run until late October 2024.