Recent Sightings: May 18 5 North Salt Lake, Utah May 18 1 Grand Junction, Colorado May 17 1 Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts May 17 2 Gambrills, Maryland May 16 1 Pennnington, New Jersey May 16 4 Freeport, New York May 15 1 Leamington, Ontario, CANADA (Pt. Pelee National Park) May 15 4 Castalia, North Carolina May 14 1 Castle Rock, Washington May 12 1 Liberty State Park, New Jersey May 12 2 Mesquite, Texas May 2 2 Portland, Oregon April 27 1 Leamington, Ontario CANADA (Pt. Pelee National Park) April 24 1 Seneca, Maryland April 16 1 Great Dismal Swamp, Maryland
Do Monarchs Cross Open Water?
According to Don Davis, a monarch butterfly tagger from Ontario, Canada they do! "Thousands of monarch butterflies do travel across large bodies of water, although it would seem that most prefer to follow the shoreline. Some monarch butterflies I have tagged on the north shore of Lake Ontario were later recaptured directly across the lake at Rochester, New York. Another butterfly, also tagged at Presqu'ile Provincial Park near Brighton, Ontario, was later recaptured on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, about 30 statute miles south of Galveston, Texas."
REPORTS:
I just got beat by a 5th grader! I study gypsy moths, and two species of butterflies for the Entomology Department at the University of Massachusetts. Because I am outside in the field a lot, I have been watching for monarchs to arrive. I have not seen one in Massachusetts yet this year, but I just got a call from a 5th grade teacher (JaniceTurek) that one of her students just did. The students name is Jessica Lee, from Barnard School, in Enfield, CT. She saw the butterfly in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts and I believe she saw it yesterday (May 17th). She saw the butterfly in between rains, near a young milkweed. The ironic thing is that I live in Shelburne Falls, so Jessica even beat me in my home town!!! Oh well, since they don't have an EMAIL account I thought I would forward this note and admit my defeat publicly! Jeff Boettner Insect Ecology Lab UMASS Entomology Dept. Amherst, Massachusetts
We are a group of sixth and seventh grade students from Jersey City, New Jersey. We are part of the Joint Activities Program. Joint Activities means respect, cooperation, and friendship of all the kids in the program. It is just like an outdoor classroom. The reason why we went to Liberty State Park was to observe migrating animals, such as shorebirds, robins, and Monarch Butterflies. We saw one monarch butterfly on May 12th.
The weekend before last (May 14 & 15), Dr. Bill Calvert of Austin, Texas, saw the first monarchs of the next generation emerge. He'd collected them as eggs (among the first eggs he saw this spring), and kept them outdoors exposed to natural light & temperatures. Therefore, he thinks monarchs in the wild emerged at about the same time.
The first monarch that I have seen this spring was sighted yesterday, Monday, May 16. It was sighted near Pennington, New Jersey (W74 degrees, 46 min; N40 degrees, 19 min) at 3:45 p.m. flying west into a west wind of approximately 15 MPH. The weather was partly cloudy and approximately 80 degrees F. Milkweeds were first observed sprouting on May 6. Paul Wedeking
My name is Bob Beals. I was traveling for my business on the west coast. I sighted 2 monarchs while in Portland, Oregon on May 2nd.
We are students in Mrs. McDermott's 2nd grade class at King Primary Center in Omaha, Nebraska. We have been studying Monarchs both in our classroom and in the library media center. We have spotted 8 monarchs around our school and neighborhood. One boy saw a monarch feeding on a flower. One girl spotted a Viceroy butterfly. We have enjoyed studying about the monarchs.
Here are two sightings of Monarchs this spring: Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia, on April 16, 1994 and Seneca, Maryland on April 24, 1994. Both of these adults were very tattered, but still flying. Will you be looking for data in the fall for the first sightings of large numbers of Monarchs heading south? We would be interested in your results, once you compile them. Good Luck.
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