| Return of the Monarchs Migratory butterflies enchant Richmond
Field Station grove By Cathy Cockrell, Public Affairs A
celebrity-status butterfly, the Monarch is renowned for its
dramatic orange and black markings and its remarkable seasonal
migrations to the same wintering spots year after year. Among a
handful of local sites with most-favored roosting status is the
150-acre Berkeley campus outpost on the east shore of San
Francisco Bay. Even for field station staff spoiled by the
siteÕs profusion of wildlife Ñ from possums, raccoons, skunks
and ground squirrels to hawks and hummingbirds Ñ the MonarchsÕ
yearly visit is a treat. Linda Ohotsky, an administrative
assistant for the Institute of Transportation Studies, has spent
many lunch hours outside her field-station building at the
corner of Lark and Gull streets. "You sit very quietly and watch
the trees, and all of a sudden you start seeing them," Ohotsky
says. "They flap and then they glide and they chase each other.
They land for awhile, swoop around, t