Date: 10/23/2007

Number: 1

The coastal flyway had its first players show up today.

At 1:30 there were about 30 monarchs on the east side of peninsula to the north end of the Lavaca Bay Causeway.
They were staying to the east along the tall grass and salt cedars out of the 25 mph west wind. It seemed some were dropping out of the sky but I think I was stirring them up as I was driving slowly along and they flew back down in front of me.

When I went back at 2:30, the tip of the peninsula was covered with several hundred monarchs. I came home, got my big net and holding cage, and was back by 2:45 to find monarchs all over the place looking for something to nectar on and doing a good job of fighting the west wind. There is some tall seaside goldenrod and camphor daisy/golden beach daisy growing along the edge of the old pavement to what was the causeway before Carla in 1961 plus some short seaside goldenrod and lantana making a comeback where TxDOT mowed ... just enough to stop some monarchs in their "tracks" today. I don't know how to count monarchs where they aren't really "flowing" past a point but Altus got there after school and together we netted
75 without stepping off the pavement. I did watched after I got tired and they were "dropping out of the sky"! Some were coming from the NE and as many from the E across the water, but the majority just appeared down in around us. I couldn't pick them up against that high sky when I tried with binocs and there weren't enough. We saw several clusters forming at sundown, one tight one on false willow that I could count with 18, one in the middle of a large stand of salt cedars that may have held over a hundred but I could only see the top of it. At 2:30 when I came back to town I was seeing monarchs in town around the edge of the bay, so they weren't just at the causeway or
peninsula.

Courtesy of Monarch Watch

Port Lavaca, TX

Latitude: 28.5 Longitude: -96.7

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