Every year at the beginning of fall, an amazing thing happens in North America, and the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Monarch Butterfly Day will be filled with fun, informative activities for both kids and adults 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, at the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville, coinciding with a fall plant sale that will also run during those same hours Friday, Sept. 29.

The Mountain Monarch Festival will return to Gorges State Park in Transylvania County for its second year 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, celebrating the monarch butterfly during its migration season.

Join in for the sixth annual Pollinator Field Day 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River.

It was a chilly February morning in 2020 when Clemson, South Carolina, resident Heyward Douglass laid eyes on the legendary monarch butterfly wintering grounds, first discovered only 45 years before. Oyamel fir trees covered the south-facing slopes of the Neovolcanic Mountains west of Mexico City, and millions of monarch butterflies covered the fir trees, 8,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level.

I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway last weekend scouting for an upcoming Alarka Expeditions trip, “Migration Celebration” which will be on Oct. 4. Monarch butterflies will be one of the migrants we will be celebrating. As I was nosing around at my first stop the other day a couple of monarchs drifted by. I stopped and began to watch — there was a steady stream of monarchs cruising by.

Monarch butterflies, like orange autumn leaves filling the skies, have been winging it to Mexico for the last month or so. Peak migration for the mountains of Western North Carolina is from mid- to late September through early to mid-October.