DATE # SEEN PLACE 5/3 1 Oregon City, Oregon 5/1 2 Baldwin Park, California 4/30 3 Richmond, Virginia 4/30 1 White Castle, Louisiana 4/29 2 Chrisfield, Maryland 4/29 35 Longwood, Florida 4/29 18 Columbia, South Carolina 4/29 1 Lake Eufala, Oklahoma 4/29 5 Strom Thurmond Lake, South Carolina (along the Savannah River) 4/28 7 Kannapolis, North Carolina 4/28 2 Denver, Colorado 4/28 1 Las Cruces, New Mexico 4/27 1 Martinsville, Indiana 4/27 1 Rochester, New York 4/25 1 Park Ridge, Illinois
April 29 South Carolina I was on a fishing trip on Strom Thurmond Lake and had 5 monarchs fly around my boat. My wife and children raised some last year and so they caught my attention. It was very warm for this time of year--low 90's. Strom Thurmond Lake is the first in a string of reservoirs along the Savannah River, South Carolina. The monarchs must be following the river north.
April 27 Martinsville, Indiana We saw a monarch butterfly at Bradford Woods last week. It was on April 27. We were on a camping trip with our class. This is close to the town of Martinsville, IN. Jan Hall's class maradint@ideanet.doe.state.in.us
April 27 Rochester, New York Hi! I'm Lisa Nudds and I am in the 3rd grade at Fyle School in Rush Henrietta, New York (outside Rochester). On April 27, at about 2:15 p.m., I was on the school bus going home and a monarch butterfly flew in the window. We thought it was a wasp, but my friend, Mandy, caught it with her hands and we saw that it was a monarch. We let it out the window. It was about 85 degrees here.
April 25 Park Ridge, Illinois Monarch in Illinois! Saw a rather bedraggled monarch Monday afternoon. We'd been having warm weather, with strong southerly winds for the last 4-5 days, so I think it caught the strong wind and got up here about a month early. The earliest I've seen one was two years ago, on May 15. My milkweed hasn't even broken ground yet. Weather the last few days has been rainy and cold.
Summary from Kansas I thought you might want to know about our local observations regarding monarch returns. On April 22 and 23rd we saw our first substantial numbers of returning monarchs. These monarchs would have been from Mexico. My colleague Steve Case had seen one on April 16 but the weather turned bad and we did not see more until the 22nd. The 22nd was a particularly warm day in the 80's with very strong southerly winds. The 23rd was likewise. Chip Taylor and I saw close to 20 monarch's over the course of the day on the 22nd and I saw about 10 the next day by noon. These monarchs were sighted in the middle of the Kansas Flint Hills, south of Junction City, KS. We were unable to capture any to check sex ratios. One of the milkweeds was just beginning to show on this weekend...too early to id.
A very interesting phenomenon happened on April 26th. This day was a warm, clear, with southwesterlies sandwiched between cold and rainy days. On this day Steve C. and I were working at the Prairie Center Park west of Olathe, KS. The previous week he had burned some prairie fields at this park as part of the management of the tall-grass prairie. One of these fields is bordered by a hedgerow on the south. In the lee side of the hedge, on the burned prairie (sprouting milkweeds), Steve observed at least 30 monarchs at one time. I have not heard of such a concentration during the spring migration. Normally the monarchs are scattered over the day and one is lucky to see 30 for the entire day. I hope that this is helpful.
Brad Williamson Olathe East High School bwilliam@ksuvm.ksu.edu
I live in Texas. Last year, for about a week, the trees in the woods I live by were just orange with monarchs. They were beautiful. I caught two, but I realized that was a bad and let them go. I knew they would be a lot happier that way. They sure a lot prettier to look at flying off into the sun than they are cooped up and sad in a net. So remember, it's best to let nature keep them, not you.
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