Date: 10/09/2002

Number: 1

This was the first day we saw monarchs in large masses at our school. They roosted in several bushes and trees around the ground, we estimated about 250-300. This was more than we had last year! We still have caterpillars on our milkweed!

At home, I had the opposite--only having a couple of hundred where we had what looked like thousands last year! Hopefully, a few more will make it in the warmer weather we've been having--haven't seen any caterpillars on my own milkweed, however.

Oct. 17 Update
Wow, I was so surprised to see that our first mass sighting of butterflies on 10-9, would be our peak. The most we've seen since that date has been 13! We have now had a hard frost, so we're sure we saw our last monarch yesterday. It was an adult male, with some tattering on the right anterior wing.

Washington, IA

Latitude: 41.3 Longitude: -91.7

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