Date: 10/12/2001

Number: 1

We're having another "river of monarchs" flow through Eagle Pass today continuously since 9:00 a. m.

I just picked one small strip of visible sky out the window looking northeast and counted everything that crossed it in one minute. There were 93. I just got out the calculator and did the multiplication on that, and it comes to 5580 an hour. And that's just the narrow strip across the width of my yard--
some 150'.

Small breeze quartering out of the SE at 10-12 mph. Temps 93.8F. Scattered
clouds, but hot and sunny.

The front came through yesterday (10/5/01) about 7:30 pm and created a few scattered sprinkles. No monarchs. Temps went to 56.1F, then up to 91 this
afternoon. Breezes very light from the north. All day the 6th: no monarchs.

Then at sunset they began tumbling down out of the skies from the north and
clustering in the same trees they have for the last 22 years that I know
about. I don't have a count yet, will wait till about 11 p.m. to check and
begin tagging.



This makes this fall arrival 6 days earlier than previous years.

People around Eagle Pass are reporting butterflies yesterday afternoon at 2 a
minute. Trees behind the offices for the Rio Bravo Nature Center had two
areas of clustering last night when I counted. One consisted of about 200 individuals and
the other area, more spread out, had about 10 clusters. One of these I
netted and caught 37 in a single net sweep. Scattered and unclustered I'd
estimate another 200 or so for a minimum 800 in a 30 yard area.

Reported for Carol Cullar Rio Bravo Nature Center by Mike Quinn, Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Eagle Pass, TX

Latitude: 28.5 Longitude: -100.5

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