Today I saw Flight of the Butterflies at COSI. The movie was about an hour long and was in 3D. The film itself was really well done - but I wasn't excited about the 3D part. 3D movies tend to give me a headache and Flight of the Butterflies, unfortunately, did not disappoint in that area. Ignoring my headache (which has gone away with some aspirin), the film was great! It went into butterfly biology (including showing and explaining what exactly goes on in a chrysalis during metamorphosis), monarch migration and the inspiring story of how Fred and Norah Urquhart (with help from citizen scientists, Ken Brugger and his wife Catalina Aguado) discovered the monarchs' hideout in Mexico.
The film simultaneously told the story of how a monarch, nicknamed Dana, and her offspring make the journey from Texas, up to Canada and back to Mexico over the course of a year, and how the Urquharts studied monarch migration (including the formation of the Insect Migration Association, known today as Monarch Watch). It was a nice blend of history and biology!
My only criticism of the film is that while it went into the plight of monarchs today (it showed the dangers adult butterflies face when migrating: pesticides, habitat loss and climate change), it didn't explicitly come out and tell the audience ways they could help. Dana the butterfly's granddaughter happens upon a butterfly garden in a suburban neighborhood in Canada, a sanctuary to lay her eggs, the eggs that will hatch into the 'super' butterflies who will fly south to Mexico. I think the film should have told the audience that they can also create butterfly gardens and how easy it is. To be fair though, they do include this information on their website, which you can find here!
Other than that - I thought the film was fantastic! The information I learned today will definitely enrich the Blooms & Butterflies tours I led at the Conservatory next spring!
You can learn more about the film on the film website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Pinterest!
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