Date: 08/27/2007
Number: 1
Aug 27th
Peninsula Point, south of Stonington, 45.669 N, 86.965 W, 2-5 pm, lots of monarchs nectaring on mostly goldenrods on spit of land extending beyond lighthouse. Saw one leave and fly southwest over open water until we lost it in the binoculars despite south wind. 7:30 pm looked for roosts in cedar trees around the lighthouse but only saw a few monarchs coming in from the point and they moved farther into the trees.
Aug 29th
7 AM, back at Peninsula Point to see if we could find roosting monarchs on the vegetation out on the point beyond the lighthouse since the cedars by the lighthouse had not yielded any on the evening of the 27th nor this morning. As we were scanning the point with binoculars from the lighthouse area, a bear appeared about 100 feet from us and we decided to let him do his round of the point instead of contesting our right of first arrival :) We did watch him and he scared up many monarchs. Very cool experience!!!
Aug 30th
3-5 pm, back at Peninsula Point. Russ and I each took an edge as we walked along one of the vegetation strips on the point and counted monarchs nectaring. We counted about 300 and are sure we missed some. There were 2 other areas where we could see monarchs flitting about the flowers.
Aug 31th
yes, back at Peninsula Point (were camped half-way down the peninsula at Nat Forest campground) 8-10 AM, even though the temperature was in the 50's the monarchs were already moving around and nectaring, so saw no big roosts, max 12 in one of the few small saplings out on the point. They were definitely out on the peninsula and not in the cedar trees and there were lots of them. We saw 2 monarchs take off and fly southwest over the water with a very slight southwest wind. They were on a mission- first arrivals get choice of camping spots or maybe they were males on a dare.
Peninsula Point, MI
Latitude: 45.7 Longitude: -87
Observed by:
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