Experience the Butterflies

By Michele E. Buttelman Signal Staff Writer

Butterflies are magical. But in addition to their beauty, these delicate insects are an important part of the food chain. Butterflies, like bees, are important pollinators.

It’s unlikely the Santa Clarita Valley will soon experience another butterfly experience like we had in 2019, when millions of butterflies migrated through Southern California, captivating onlookers with the colorful spectacle of clouds of butterflies. The orange butterflies, called Painted Ladies, which travel annually from the deserts of Southern California to the Pacific Northwest.

However, you can still get your “butterfly fix,” if you know where to look.

Attracting butterflies

The Santa Clarita Valley has a good climate for attracting butterflies. Plant butterfly-friendly plants and provide a shallow water source, such as a bird bath, to attract butterflies to your garden.

Butterflies such as Asters, phlox, goldenrod, milkweed, pineapple sage, purple coneflower, verbena, coreopsis, dianthus, nasturtium, French marigolds, Heliotrope, impatiens, cosmos and zinnias. Nectar-rich shrubs include: Azalea, butterfly bush, glossy abelia and trailing Lantana.

Where are the butterflies?

If you want to see large numbers of butterflies, visit one of these seasonal butterfly exhibits, or butterfly gardens, in California.

Butterfly Pavilion

March 5 through August 13

900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles 90007

Info bit.ly/3ZpP0hM

The butterflies are again taking flight at the Natural History Museum’s Butterfly Pavilion, where guests will be able to stroll through the Nature Gardens on the way to the pavilion. Tickets are $8 for non-members and are for 30 minute time slots.

This springtime exhibition features hundreds of butterflies, colorful native plants and plenty of natural light to help you see these creatures shimmer. With lots of flight space and a variety of resting spots, this one of the best views in California of these amazing insects.

This exhibit offers 30 different species, including California natives like the Western tiger swallowtail and Common buckeye. Discover caterpillars munching on milkweed, chrysalises dangling beneath shrubs and witness adult butterflies performing important pollination as they feed on blooming flowers. You’ll learn about different species of butterflies, including White Peacocks and Painted Ladies.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park Butterfly Jungle

March 18 through May 14

15500 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido 92027

Info: sdzsafaripark.org/butterfly jungle

This exhibit requires a separate ticket in addition to the zoo admission fee. Exhibit tickets are $15 per person. Zoo tickets run $57-$69 for single-day passes.

Here you will learn about the butterfly life cycle and become immersed in the wonder of butterflies in the Hidden Jungle. Each experience lasts approximately 30 minutes from check-in until exit. The Safari Park’s Hidden Jungle is home to the zoo’s butterflies, and inside the rain forest greenhouse, you’ll see thousands of butterflies above and around you as they sip nectar from flowers and feeders.

Both the zoo and the park are open, so make a day of it and enjoy all the sights to see. However, reservations are required in order to regulate the number of visitors.

Hallberg Butterfly Gardens

8687 Oak Grove Ave, Sebastopol 95472

Info bit.ly/3ZLIYrx

The Hallberg Butterfly Gardens are a wildlife sanctuary and an open habitat with dirt trails. It’s nestled among the apple orchards of Western Sonoma County and covers nine acres of overgrown vines and thickets, flowering pathways and meadows. The self-guided tours are by appointment only. While the gardens are open April until October, the best time to see the butterflies is from April to June. This is when the most abundant populations of the large Swallowtail butterflies can be observed. To date, it is estimated that more than 54 varieties of butterflies have visited the gardens. 

Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day

By Doña Uhrig Sundy Signal Editor

Celebrations around Town

Egg Plantation’s St. Patrick’s Party

24415 Walnut St, Newhall 91321

Info www.eggplantation.com

4:30-8:30 p.m. Live Irish Music, Irish food, drinks & Irish dancers. Families welcome. No cover.

Maginns Irish Pub 1st St. Patrick’s Day Celebration

24480 Main Street Suite 140, Newhall 91321

Info maginnspub.com

Thursday 3/16 will have live music for the preSt. Patrick’s Day festivities. Friday 3/17 will have seating outdoors by reservation only. Four times: 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. There is a $50 minimum. After 11 p.m. there will be open seating indoors. Live music.

Old Town Newhall SENSES Block Party St.

Paddy’s Eve

Let the shenanigans begin a day early at St. Paddy’s Eve SENSES Block Party on Main Street from 7-10 p.m. Watch dancers from the Fisher-McLeod School of Irish Dance, play our favorite pub-style game and sip on an Irish whiskey from the on-street bar provided by The Old Town Junction while listening to the music of Craic in the Stone.

Pocock Brewing’s Irish Fest Sat. March 18

24907 Avenue Tibbitts, Suite B, Santa Clarita, 91355

Info www.pocockbrewing.com/

The noon to 10 p.m. free event will feature live music from The Fenians, The Darryls and The Griswolds, Irish Food specials and Irish beer releases. 

March 17 is celebrated not only in Ireland, but also throughout the world by Irish and non-Irish alike. St. Paddy’s Day is known for parades, ancestry, traditions, shamrocks, leprechauns and the “wearin’ o’ the green.”

Interestingly enough, many of the modern Saint Patrick’s Day traditions were invented by the Irish in America.

In the United States, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations can include imbibing green beer, eating corned beef and cabbage or Irish stew or dancing an Irish jig.

It’s hard to miss the signs of St. Patrick’s Day with shamrocks, leprechauns, green cookies, green cupcakes and green milkshakes nearly everywhere you look.

Everyone’s Irish …

There is little agreement on the origins of the idiom “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day,” but what is known is that as many as 4.5 million Irish arrived in America between 1820 and 1930. Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted more than onethird of all immigrants to the United States. In the 1840s, they comprised nearly half of all immigrants to this nation.

The first person to pass through the doors at Ellis Island was teenager Annie Moore of Ireland, whose story is somewhat told in the song Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears by Gaelic Storm.

Who was St. Patrick?

Much of what is shared about St. Patrick is based on folklore and exaggerated storytelling, according to historians. Snakes famously banished from Ireland? Snakes have never existed on the island to even be banished! Getting to the truth of St. Patrick the man takes a little digging through the fanciful tales.

Ironically, St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. St. Patrick was born to a wealthy family in modern-day Great Britain near the end of the fourth century. There is no evidence that Patrick came from a particularly religious family, and History.com says it was likely Patrick’s father became a Christian deacon because of tax incentives and not religious devotion.

Patrick only arrived in Ireland after being taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who attacked his family’s estate. He spent ages 16 to 22 in captivity and was likely held in County Mayo.

Much of what is known about St. Patrick comes from two works that he wrote about his life, known as “Confessio” and “Epistola.” In “Confessio,” Patrick responds to the fact that he was on trial for mysterious reasons, although he never names the crimes for which he was accused. Historians surmise that he took bribes because Patrick mentions returning or paying for gifts given to him.

While he played a role in spreading Christianity to Ireland, he did not introduce it there.

He did, however, help make the shamrock become a symbol of Irish nationalism. According to legend, he used the shamrock, also known as a three-leaf clover, as a visual guide to explain the Holy Trinity of Christianity. By the 17th century, the shamrock had become a symbol of emerging Irish nationalism, according to History.com.