The Ney Nature Center sends families on a butterfly and dragonfly quest

HENDERSON, Minn. (KEYC) - Families got a chance to capture butterflies and dragonflies today at the Ney Nature Center prairie.

Participants were sent off with nets to collect as many butterflies and dragonflies as they could.

It was a delicate quest that was fun for kids and adults.

Naturalist Christopher Johnson says the technique has similarities to hunting that get the adults especially excited.

“You’re not killing the species but you’ve got to trap them, you’ve got to catch them. So there is some hunting that goes through it because you can’t just pick a dragonfly or a butterfly out of the air – you’ve got to wait for them to land, you’ve got to follow them and so you’ve got to be really patient so there is some aspects of hunting in there that some adults really find interesting,” Johnson said.

Out in the field, they were likely to find species like monarchs and swallowtails.

Once the groups caught all the different species, they could go back to the Nature Center to identify them.

And finally, the butterflies were released into the butterfly house for breeding.

Ney Nature Center will host the next program on second to last weekend in August, when the different species are active.

You can register to join the fun by visiting this website: http://neycenter.org/.

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