When and where was this monarch was tagged?
This monarch was tagged by Mr. Billy McCord, a man who lives in Ms. Spence's hometown!

"I tagged monarch #NMT568 in my yard on James Island, Charleston, South Carolina on 17 Sept. 2010," began Mr. McCord.

"I actually I live on James Island! So Mr. McCord can't live too far from me because its not a really big place!" exclaimed Ms. Spence.

As it turns out, Monarch #NMT 568 moved about 2.2 miles to the east-northeast, but generally toward the coast, in the 4 days after it was tagged and released. Mr. McCord has tagged over 15,000 monarchs. Here are some of his thoughts, based on what he has learned from his tagging data:

"I don't think it is unusual for monarchs to 'drift about' and gradually move southward during stable to stagnant weather periods, as was likely the case for the week or so following the tagging and release of this monarch. It is now probably far to our south, assuming that it survived.

"Most of the monarchs that migrate along the coast of the Southeast apparently DO NOT winter in the well-known colonies in central Mexico. I have had only 3 reported recoveries from the Mexico colonies of ~15,000 tagged monarchs, 1996-2009.

"The various destinations of monarchs migrating through the Southeast coastal area are poorly understood. I know for certain, based on tagging and recoveries by me in the Charleston area, that many (likely collectively thousands) monarchs winter along the South Carolina coast (likely many more from at least Wilmington, NC to Savannah, GA) where winter temperatures are moderated by coastal water-bodies. For example, I caught one monarch seven times last fall-winter (8 Nov 2009 – 18 Jan 2010) at Folly Beach/Island! I have also had five recoveries from Florida (of which 4 were on Gulf coast).

"The prevailing wisdom is that monarchs migrating along the East Coast have many potential destinations: absorbed into non-migratory subtropical and tropical populations in south Florida, Caribbean islands (including Cuba), Mexico and perhaps Central America; wintering/seasonally dormant in mountains of Mexico; and wintering/seasonally dormant along the temperate coast of the Southeast."

Image courtesy of Barbara Spence

Monarch #NMT 568 moved about 2.2 miles to the east-northeast in the 4 days after it was tagged and released.

"The photograph shows some damage to the leading edge of the left hind-wing from some contact incident," observed Mr. McCord.