The first bird my mother taught me to recognize was a robin. And the first butterfly she taught me was the monarch.

This was in South County, Rhode Island, but I imagine that millions have had much the same experience, learning the big, bright-red monarch before anything else.

The monarch does no one any harm (and who of us can say the same about ourselves?). It lays its eggs on milkweed leaves, and the caterpillars crunch away at the leaves before spinning cocoons and going into their sleep. Since milkweeds are considered a nuisance plant, the caterpillars are actively doing good in the world.

Once they emerge as butterflies, the monarchs sip nectar from flowers, or lick salt from mud flats. They fill the world with beauty, keep the milkweed in check, and never do harm.

But just about every year, they grow fewer and fewer. I had been concerned by seeing so few this year, and now I’m reading reports of severe losses over the past year, in part due to bad weather.

These beautiful butterflies are especially endangered because of their own migration patterns. They spread out east of the Rockies up as far as southern Canada, but most of them overwinter in Mexico, in a space smaller than Schuyler County. Whenever ANYTHING goes wrong in that small space, millions of monarchs may die. Even felling a single tree might kill a thousand hibernating butterflies.

There are many good causes – there are even many good causes simply looking at our environment – and it’s impossible to support them all. My money goes to the National Audubon Society, with its century-long history of fighting for us by fighting for the earth. Audubon helps monarchs in several ways, such as preserving habitat (including milkweed) and helping with tagging studies.

But while I focus on Audubon, earlier this month I grabbed an Environmental Defense Fund mailing to one of our sons, and was almost immediately writing a $35 check.

That check will help underwrite an acre of Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange land. (And with a 2-for-1 matching grant, that parleys into three acres.) E.D.F. pays farmers (mostly) to keep land as suitable monarch habitat (often including milkweed), or to restore monarch land.

This helps maintain migratory corridors, much as Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester is doing with its delightful Butterfly Beltway program, which has now been in operation for nearly 20 years.

Humphrey Nature Center, at Letchworth State Park, has been operating a program that raises, tags, and releases monarchs.

Donating $35 is the least I can do for a species that has given me nothing but joy for almost 70 years. Fifty cents a year. That’s worth it, for sure.