Date: 10/13/2002
Number: 1
An estimated 63,375 Monarchs passed through Tony Gallucci's "patch of sky" on October 13th, and 39,000 on the 14th, making this peak migration for Hunt, TX. Compare these days to the daily counts between September 15-October 22nd:
Daily Counts
Sept. 15 4 First of Season (FOS)
Sept. 16 0
Sept. 17 0
Sept. 18 0
Sept. 19 1
Sept. 20 1
Sept. 21 3
Sept. 22 0
Sept. 23 0
Sept. 24 0
Sept. 25 0
Sept. 26 0
Sept. 27 0
Sept. 28 1
Sept. 29 2
Sept. 30 1
Oct. 1 1
Oct. 2 2
Oct. 3 0
Oct. 4 1
Oct. 5 0
Oct. 6 8
Oct. 7 0
Oct. 8 2
Oct. 9 8
Oct. 10 9
Oct. 11 6
Oct. 12 12
Oct. 13 1669 [63,375 crossed “patch of sky”]
Oct. 14 1343 [39,000 crossed “patch of sky”]
Oct. 15 3
Oct. 16 31
Oct. 17 15
Oct. 18 0
Oct. 19 17
Oct. 20 1
Oct. 21 3
Oct. 22 9
Quoting from this full note:
Rain kept me out of the field most of the morning with only brief lulls. The rain quit about eleven, but no clearing occurred until about 30 minutes ago (7:30 p.m.). Shortly before noon the Monarchs started flying again. I went looking for birds, but today there was little bird activity, so I concentrated on the Monarchs.
From my Big Sit location I timed two individuals clearing the sky north to south at 0:03:42 and 0:04:01. And twice I counted the entire visible sky, getting totals of 626 and 715 Monarchs. They were flying at roughly the same rate until about 4 p.m. when the numbers dropped way off. so i guess my actual count for the day was 1343. but I used the old sky-clearing blackbird counting technique (which i also favor for estimating any large flocks (hawks, robins, etc.). using conservative numbers of 4 minutes and 650 individuals over a four-hour flight i came up with an estimate of 39,000 Monarchs through my patch of sky today (my area of visibility here is about 4.5 miles in diameter, but of course the distance for seeing Monarchs even with binoculars is quite shorter). during that time period, i also looked for birds and Monarchs at my home, as far as Mountain Home and Kerrville, and found the flight just as strong. yesterday's flight seemed stronger than today's and lasted longer, but using the same conservative numbers for yesterday's flight time of 1 to 7:30 the estimate works out to 63,375 for that narrow patch of sky. i feel like both day's estimates are very reasonable. not a single other individual butterfly of any species was seen either day (not even a Snout!).
Hunt, TX
Latitude: 30 Longitude: -99.6
Observed by:
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