Dear Friends,
One more weekend now, and the Sanctuaries are still a wonderful site for visiting and not believing your eyes.
I went up this weekend after having observed a reasonable number of monarchs heading north during the week — although not as massive as I saw 7-10 days ago.
Monarchs continue to make their main site in "Río Grande" in La Salud Community. The population is quite low now, with around 6 Oyamels with small clusters. For comparison, last week there twice as many trees with clusters, and two or three times more clusters — plus, the clusters were larger.
Even though there are fewer butterflies, the massive bursting from clusters into flight is very considerable for this time of the month. I sat down in the core of the colony where I was able to hear and see the explosive "booming" of several clusters. The sound of thousands of wings as the butterflies burst from the trees is indescribable, and being amidst this marvel is unbelievable.
Massive mating is still taking place everywhere you turn your eyes. Pairs are either on the ground, flying up with partners clinging together, others landing during the full mating moment, at the flowers, in the branches of trees... To think that I was very worried about not observing this 2-3 weeks ago!!!
Artemio, the boy who was my guide today, told me:
"Estela, help us tell people and visitors in general that they may still come next weekend, since you can see for yourself now that there will be monarchs enough here at Río Grande for one or even a couple of weeks more."
Mari-Carmen (8) and Ana-Elda (6) both living in La Salud with their familiy and going down to do the weekly shopping in Angangueo told me:
"These are the last days monarchs are with us for this season, Estela, and months will feel long until the next monarch season comes back again."
As commented in former reports, although the raining season was intense last summer-fall (140 mm), the earth looks very dry now. We hope the next raining season will come soon, since our temperatures may reach up to an average of 28° C in our region.
During the last days of this season, I will continue to enjoy and express gratitude to life for having been born in my homeland where I'm able to witness such a miracle in nature.
Your local reporter,
Estela Romero
Angangueo, Michocán, México
