Date: 09/03/2003

Number: 1

Over the last 6 nights, we've tagged 1025 monarchs in the Monona Butterfly Garden. This is the first time the monarchs have been in this area for this long in these numbers. Usually they stage elswhere and are here only during migration. We have been recovering many of our own tags each night from previous nights.

The groups have been getting larger every night. Last night (9/3/03) there were well over 20 limbs of 50 or more monarchs!! This is the best we have seen. We are also getting several calls each day about other large group sightings in the area.

They are not picky this year in which trees they set in. They are using Ash, Maple, Cherry, Boxelder, Cottonwood, Oak, Willow and Walnut.

One of the neat byproducts of doing this in the city park is that a lot of people get to interact with us and a lot of kids get involved. Sometimes this does lead to unexpected events. One night a tagger found a very large group in a tree and called down for another net. A little 1st Grader grabbed a net and went running into the area sending the monarchs into flight!! There had to be at least 500. What a sight!! Tagging that night was done but as I sat there lamenting the loss, I remembered the glowing little face and decided that a glowing little face on a child is indeed worth a thousand monarchs!!

Happy tagging. There are a lot of monarchs in Northeast Iowa. They are staging now but will be moving south soon.

Contributed to Monarch Watch.

Monona, IA

Latitude: 43.1 Longitude: -91.4

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