Michigan's Migrants
Follow the last green darner of summer and discover how Michigan's dragonflies, birds, bats, and butterflies prepare for their remarkable autumn migrations.
Each September, I start looking for the last green darner.​ Throughout the summer they're impossible to miss, patrolling the garden, cruising the edge of the meadow, and darting over the pond with the confidence of tiny helicopters. Then, almost overnight, there is only one.
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It appears in the late afternoon, making long, purposeful loops through the yard before disappearing into the trees. I find myself wondering each time I see it: Will this be the last?
Soon enough, the answer is yes.
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That lone dragonfly is a quiet reminder that summer is packing its bags. We're used to thinking about birds when migration season arrives. Robins, warblers, flycatchers, and hummingbirds begin leaving Michigan in early September, while ducks and geese linger until colder weather arrives. Some species travel only a short distance. Others undertake astonishing journeys. Blackburnian Warblers fly nearly 5,000 miles to the Andes of South America, while Ruby-throated Hummingbirds travel almost 2,000 miles to Central America, crossing the Gulf of Mexico in a single nonstop flight of up to 500 miles.
Bats have their own strategies. Eastern Red Bats migrate as far south as Central America, while Little Brown Bats move to caves in states such as Kentucky and Tennessee. Big Brown Bats often remain close to home, hibernating in caves, rock crevices, barns, attics, and other sheltered places.
The green darner, though, always captures my attention because so few people realize dragonflies migrate at all. Like monarch butterflies, green darners head south as autumn approaches, some traveling all the way to the Gulf Coast. The remarkable part is that they won't be the ones returning. The dragonflies that come back to Michigan next spring will be their descendants, continuing a journey that spans multiple generations.
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Many other insects stay put. Some spend winter beneath leaf litter or tucked beneath loose bark. Others survive as eggs or pupae until warmer days return. A few even produce a natural antifreeze, glycerol, that keeps their tiny bodies from freezing. And, of course, ladybugs and boxelder bugs often decide our homes make perfectly acceptable winter shelters.
​​By the time the last green darner disappears from our yard, the asters have taken over the ditches, the mornings feel cooler, and the evenings grow quiet a little earlier each day. I always miss seeing that flash of blue-green skimming across the meadow. But its absence is also a promise. Next summer, if all goes well, another green darner will once again be tracing circles above our yard.
