City of Kingsville

KINGSVILLE (News Release) - The annual Butterfly Blitz will be held on October 20-23rd. This is the third year for the event, brought to you by Keep Kingsville Beautiful in partnership with Monarch City USA, the King Ranch and the City of Kingsville.

City of Kingsville Tourism Director Janine Reyes said the festival was designed to celebrate the city’s designation as a Monarch City USA. “We have a network of six gardens tailor made to facilitate the journey of the monarch butterflies,” Reyes said, “it was a commitment we made in 2020 when we received our Monarch City USA designation.”

The city consulted with experts and installed native milkweed. The partners who host Butterfly Buds Gardens agree to keep the space pesticide-free to provide a safe space for all pollinators. A variety of queens, swallowtails, sulfurs and even hummingbirds can be spotted at the Butterfly Buds Gardens daily. They are free and open to the public, except for the garden located on Naval Air Station-Kingsville. Visitors must have base access to visit that site.

Butterfly Blitz attendees are encouraged to take a self-guided tour of our Butterfly Buds Gardens to see what species they can spot. There will be a free Kingsville Butterfly Bio-Blitz competition in iNaturalist throughout the weekend with guests competing to win one of the top three prizes for sighting and capturing the most species.

The King Ranch Visitor Center will be offering Winged Wonder Tours, developed, and offered only for the festival, on Friday and Sunday at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Eighty-one species of butterflies have been recorded on the King Ranch Visitor Center grounds. The tours will be led by King Ranch Visitor Program Manager Janice Travis, and will focus on identifying butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, moths and birds that can be found on the legendary King Ranch.

Reservations must be made in advance on-line or by calling (361) 592-8055. There will also be free Pollinators of the Night Exhibits Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. The experience pairs attendees with nature experts who use a blacklight to capture a variety of arthropods such as beetles and moths. Citizen scientists can help collect insects found in the community and document their sightings to provide quality data for research. Pollinators of the Night will take place at 8 p.m. each night and be offered at the L.E. Ramey Golf Course Friday and at Dick Kleberg Park Saturday.

The Butterfly Blitz Festival kicks off Saturday morning with a 5k Monarch run at Dick Kleberg Park. Entry is $20 and includes T-shirts and award metals. Music and activities will take place at the park starting at 9 a.m.

The festival is free to the public and the event offers a lively opportunity to see and participate in the Monarch Watch tagging and releasing of farm raised and wild caught Monarch butterflies. The tagging program is a large-scale community science project that began in 1992 to understand the dynamics of the monarch’s amazing fall migration. The event also offers the opportunity to learn from experts about pollinator gardening and nature photography, using iNaturalist to identify and log pollinators and enjoy live music and Monarch Mimosas and other beverages at Dick Kleberg Park.

Find out more about Butterfly Blitz activities at KingsvilleTexas.com