The East Brunswick Butterfly Park: A Small Oasis in Town

The East Brunswick Butterfly Park is right smack in the middle of East Brunswick and is surrounded by a vast sea of homes on all sides. Nonetheless, since it was opened nearly 10 years ago, more than 50 species of butterflies have been recorded. Some are incredibly common like the Cabbage white and the Silver-spotted skipper and the tiny Eastern-tailed blue and the huge unmistakeable Tiger swallowtail, others are less common but present every year like the Little Wood Satyr and the Viceroy and the Red-spotted purple and yet others are rare, like the Cloudless Sulphur that has been seen only twice and the Common checkered skipper that was seen once in 2002 and not again since. In the fall, good numbers of monarchs migrate through the Park on their southward journey to Mexico and each year monarch caterpillars are found on the common milkweed. Monarchs are also tagged at the park each summer by a participant in the Monarch Watch citizen tagging program (http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/tag.htm). 

The Butterfly Park is the first municipal park in the country created and dedicated to butterfly education. Since its inception in 2002, it has garnered vast media coverage including in USA Today and the Star Ledger. The Butterfly Park has also received numerous awards. The park was almost entirely built by volunteers and is maintained by the Environmental Commission and the Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission. The Park has extensive plantings along a central cinder-trail that are designed to attract butterflies and a meadow and woods that also have well-maintained trails. While there are certainly plenty of great and wilder places to see a wide variety of butterflies in Middlesex County and throughout the state (http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabanj/sites.html, for anyone living near the Butterfly Park it is a small oasis worth exploring. The flowers alone are worth the trip. Given its small size it is a perfect starter for introducing children to the joys of butterflies and other insects. The trails all have benches built by Boy Scouts and there is a kiosk also built by a Scout that is filled with information about butterflies. The small size of the park and its accessability make it a great place to look for common butterflies and for a short easy peaceful place to stroll. 

The Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission (www.friendsebec.com) have also developed an Online Field Guide to the butterflies of the park that is filled with photographs and loads of cool natural history information about them (http://www.freewebs.com/friendsebec/butterflyfieldguide.htm). We are interested in any sightings of butterflies not yet found in the Park and welcome photographs and information. Simply email them to us at friends.ebec@gmail.com. Also consider joining the East Brunswick Butterfly Park Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/East-Brunswick-Butterfly-Park/104815092897434) where you can share your observations and photos.