Folks Flock to See Monarch Trail, Blue Moon

Kids and adults get an education about development plans for the County Grounds and how Friends group has worked to save a place in it for the migratory monarch butterfly.

When all the parking spaces at the Milwaukee County Parks building were full up, people started parking on the peripheries. And when they filled up, they started parking along the drive, until it was full, too. So, you'd have to call it a capacity crowd Friday night for the Friends of the Monarch Trail's Blue Moon Party. Kicking off at 5:30 p.m., there was kite-flying and face-painting for kids, and an education on migration for them and adults. Barb Agnew, the founder of the trail and leader of the Friends group, brought along a big hanging net bag filled with a variety of butterflies that she raises in her floral shop, Barb and Dick's Wildflower, 12326 Watertown Plank Rd. Among them were, of course, monarchs, the big orange and black …

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Monarch Enthusiasts Celebrate 'Once in a Blue Moon'

County Grounds celebration of astronomical rarity also calls attention to biological phenomenon of migrating monarchs.

It happens once every two or three years, or, to be more precise, seven times every 19 years. A blue moon. That's when, according to modern reckoning, you have two full moons in the same month. That will happen Friday evening, and the Friends of the Monarch Trail invite you to celebrate the celestial event with an earthly one, a Blue Moon Party beginning at 5:30 p.m. on the County Grounds. The party will feature kite flying (wind permitting) and Irish music presented by Ceol Cairde. Other activities may include scientific tagging of any early migrating monarch butterflies that may be wafting through the County Grounds. Guests are encouraged and permited to park at the Milwaukee County Parks Department Headquarters Building lot, 9480 …

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Monarch Trail Fundraiser Alive with Possibilities

Live milkweed plants – and monarch butterfly pupae – are among the featured guests at event, and you can take them home.

The Friends of the Monarch Trail will hold its first fundraising event of the year on Sunday with a milkweed plant sale and an unusual auction. The gathering is from 3 to 5 p.m. at the west side of the Milwaukee County Parks Department parking lot, 9480 Watertown Plank Rd. That is also the trailhead of the Monarch Trail, which winds north through meadows on the County Grounds and then circles the Eschweiler Campus. A protected habitat area around the Eschweilers each year attracts flocks of migrating monarch butterflies in mid-September, which fill the meadows by day and certain roosting trees by night. Sunday's fundraiser offers an opportunity to buy young milkweed plants, the only plants on which monarchs lay eggs and upon which their …

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Jim Price

6:50 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2012

Well, no, I doubt everyone does. Perhaps you could explain.   more ›

Name That Street, Part II: Committee Holds Off Pending Further Investigation

Public interest in christening new County Grounds road puts action aside for at least two weeks.

Thanks in large part to a Wauwatosa Patch reader, the city will put more thought and research into choosing an appropriate name for its first new street in many years. Wauwatosa will own and maintain a road that will wind through UWM's Innovation Park development and provide access to new county parkland and a butterfly and wildlife habitat preserve. It is up to the Common Council to approve names for new city streets. The Community Development Committee, meeting Tuesday night, was prepared to send a recommendation forward to the full Common Council when it had only one proposal on the table: Technology Parkway, the name preferred by the UWM Real Estate Foundation, which purchased the land and is directing development. But suggestions from…

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Editor's Notebook

Name That Street: Road Serving Innovation Park Area Needs Christening

City will ponder a permanent name for road after "Technology Parkway," UWM's working title, did not go over particularly well.

When the UWM Real Estate Foundation brought its plans to the city last week for the first two elements of its Innovation Park project, both came with proposed names. The first building, a two-story, 25,000-square-foot structure, is intended to be an "accelerator" laboratory where academic and industry researchers will collaborate toward rapid development of new technologies. Officially, it would be the Institute for Industrial Innovation, but the foundation and its design consultants are calling it simply the "Innovation Accelerator." I have no problem with either name, and I haven't heard anyone else squawk, either. However... UWM's foundation also proposed a name for the road that will serve the accelerator and all future developments. …

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Jim Price

7:02 pm on Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Mark, according to the city clerk, the naming of any new city street is a matter for the Common Council and its committees to consider and approve. We're all paying for it, so our representative government is responsible for naming it. In the case of most new subdivisions in more exurban municipalities, I would guess that councils accept Blue Jay Way and What Oak Ridge from the developers without…   more ›

Wild Wauwatosa

Monarch Enthusiasts Paint a Landscape for Preservation

The Monarch Trail on the County Grounds is increasingly popular, especially as marvelous migration begins.

The annual monarch butterfly migration season is just getting under way. Thanks to the efforts of the Friends of the Monarch Trail, the Milwaukee County Grounds has become ground zero for butterfly enthusiasts. As they have for several years now, the Friends organized a Migration Launch Party, which took place Saturday evening. The Monarch Trail was established in 2006 in response to the loss of critical habitat areas due to developments that were taking place on the County Grounds. Friends founder “Butterfly Barb" Agnew, along with a team of volunteers, created the trail to raise public awareness about the international importance of this site, which is an increasingly rare roosting place for monarchs and other species, including birds, …

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