Contributing photographer Mike Greenlar captured this monarch butterfly as it sat on a sunflower in Syracuse’s North Side this August.
Monarch butterflies are attracted to sunflowers because the plants offer a large flat surface where the nectar of the plant is easily accessible. They migrate south toward Mexico in search of wintering sites as summer ends.
The World Wide Fund for Nature lists monarch butterflies as endangered.
Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed and are the only source of food for baby caterpillars but milkweed has often been paved or plowed over, according to the WWF.
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