Dear Friends,
Now that it's the beginning of March, temperatures are increasing drastically and the time for the monarchs to leave is coming soon.
This weekend I joined Monarch Watch volunteers Debbie Jackson and Diane Pruden to witness their job collecting monarch tags. As I left Angangueo and headed up to the Sanctuaries, small herds of monarchs were streaming down one of the main rivers.
When we reached the entrance of El Rosario Sanctuary, we left a message with the local people that Tag Collectors were here. Next our guide, Orlando (20) and a native of the Rancho Escondido community, took us into the colony.
Inside the colony, Orlando showed us the distance the monarchs have already moved downwards. They orginally settled at Los Letreros. During the last two weeks they first moved down to La Agüita and now, during the past week, they came even more downwards to Las Balsitas.
The colony continues to be just beautiful—and really dense—in spite of the normal dispersion due to the wonderful afternoon sun (14:00 hrs). Mating is definitley taking place, although is not abundant yet but will increase during the coming days.
Monarchs come and go everywhere—nectaring and watering all around—using evey flower for nectar and clean-water puddle to moisturize themselves.
Back at the entrance, we discovered that our message had traveled quickly. Men and women living in the forest ran the rumor quickly to each other to bring their tags for selling. Several men and women who work at the Sanctuaries were there to handle the tags that had been collected during the year by the whole family.
The offer for each tag was 70 pesos this year; that is 20 pesos more than last year, taking into account that tags would be even more difficult to find when the population is lower. Debbie and Diane expressed their gratitude to every tag seller and pointed to them how important the tagging actions are.
So far, dear friends, this is the way we are so cheerfully enjoying all kinds of events taking place during the last weeks of wonderful monarch butterflies still with us in their overwintering sites in Central México.
Until next week,
Estela Romero
Local Reporter
Angangueo, Michocán, México
