The purpose of our website is to share the programs and goals of the Butterfly Barn nature center with a larger community. And to invite viewers to share their thoughts with us.
The Butterfly Barn nature center occupies a sunny room in a two-story barn that overlooks the Upper Delaware River near Milanville, PA — the barn built in 1913 by Charles Dexter, a Union Army veteran.
A major activity at the nature center is to rescue monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars from threatened habitats, and to rear them on home-grown milkweed plants. With the invaluable aid of local children we've been hatching and releasing about 450 monarchs each summer.
We also band migrating monarchs, and one spring learned that a little male we'd tagged the previous autumn
(# 117JG) had been recovered in central Mexico.
Public Programs. From April through October the nature center offers free public programs that range from astronomy to wild flower walks and children's puppet plays. Our emphasis is on protecting the habitats of local plants and animals.
Summer Camp Scholarships. A new focus is to encourage talented children to explore the outdoors, especially in camp settings that inspire them to discover the inner workings of a hardwood forest, say, or of a local wetland.
Since 2006 we’ve granted five scholarships to an historic Maine Audubon Society camp at Hog Island, in the Gulf of Maine; and have paid part-tuition for ten children at at two YMCA camps that operate outdoor education programs in Northeast PA.
A link to Maine Audubon and its Hog Island programs is in the box below.
The large butterfly (top) was drawn by Maggie, a 4th grader in Honesdale, PA.
