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Grant and I had travelled the short distance up into the mountains near Angangueo to the Chincua butterfly reserve. We were pretty excited as we knew what to expect but nothing prepares you for the reality.
As you walk down into the valley and the sun starts to warm the air, you are met by an amazing if not surreal sight as the butterflies come peeling off the trees in their thousands until the air is thick with butterfly confetti, it's like something from a Disney film.
Once you get over the visual impact and then realise that many of these creature have travelled hundreds of miles already and are about to set off again northwards, it's a whole new level of wonder.
I’ve taken quite a few pictures, it’s a place where you can’t really take a bad picture as the light quality is so good, and there’s definitely no chance of you missing your subject.
Apart from the spectacle of the butterflies what has struck me also here is the effect an insect has had on the culture. The football team in Morelia are called the Monarchs, the car number plates have butterflies on them and a whole tourist industry has been built around the butterfly and when you see the spectacle you can understand why. Are there any other insect occasions quite like it, I don’t think so. Though get back to me if you know any.
Float like a butterfly sounds like a...
The amount of butterflies makes for unique sounds and we have been using our raft of microphones to try to capture it for the programme. There’s the parabolic microphone that has a big satellite type dish to condense the sound into the microphone, it looks a bit wacky much to the amusement of the locals and were getting some good results with this, then there’s the M&S mic that uses two microphones positioned on top of each other to give a rich stereo picture. We'll be uploading them soon so listen to this space.
Grants big win
In a day of unusual things one of the strangest was when Grant was doing a piece for the programme and the butterfly that he was watching opened its wings to reveal it had one of Chip Taylor’s tags stuck to its wing. You can hear this on tape if you listen to the audio clip above. The odds of this are huge and considering Chip himself has never seen a tag on a live butterfly here in Mexico, it was akin to Grant being Charlie and finding Mr Wonka's golden ticket. When we get back maybe I'll ask Grant to buy me a lottery ticket.
Jody Bourton, Chincua butterfly reserve, 2008
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Next report: Running with Monarchs Part III
Last report: Running with Monarchs
Find out more about Professor Chip Taylor's study on the Monarch Watch blog