Brian Bockhahn carefully holds a monarch butterfly aloft outside the Gorges State Park Visitor Center. Here, at the edge of the Blue Ridge Escarpment, a view of low, rumpled hills stretches out for miles beyond. An audience of hundreds watches as Bockhahn gently affixes a tiny tag — a lettered and numbered polypropylene sticker — to one of the butterfly’s wings, decorated in brilliant patterns of orange, black, and white, like panes in a stained glass window.

A dozen kids surround Bockhahn, their hands held high. He places the fragile creature onto the fingertip of one lucky child. The butterfly pumps its wings once, twice — as if gathering itself — and then flutters away. “Good luck! Buena suerte!” Bockhahn shouts. The children wave goodbye as the colorful pilgrim turns south toward Mexico on one of Mother Nature’s most miraculous migratory journeys.

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