Date: 10/26/2007

Number: 1

This has been about the most monarchs I have seen in 24 years, and only the second time they have chosen the station (Perry R. Bass Marine Fisheries Research Station) as a “rest stop” . I also had several thousand monarchs in my front yard for the night on the 26th.

Here are some better details on this years monarch sightings at the station.

The monarchs were first noticed on the evening of the 24th, when roughly 10,000 were found congregated in some tall brush and weeds on an elevated area on the station grounds.

The monarchs remained in the area the next morning and throughout the day and had spread to a group of small Chinese tallow trees, and the number had increased to about 20-25,000 individuals (again, roughly estimated). Also about 4:00 pm on the 25th a flight of monarchs was observed moving from northeast to southwest across the station, numbers would be difficult to estimate but the flight continued for 20-45 minutes and was relatively dense.

Monarchs were not observed congregating on the station on the 26th, but some individuals were observed in the area. The research station is located on the north shore of Matagorda bay where FM 3280 dead ends at the bayshore.

Also on the 26th I observed monarchs (estimated 5-10,00) congregating in trees (Chinese tallow and chinaberry) at my residence which is approximately four miles north of the research station.

Keep in mind that my estimates are very rough and I don’t have any prior experience with estimating butterfly numbers so the actual numbers could very easily be half or double my estimates.

Courtesy of Mike Quinn, Texas Department of Fish and Game

Palacios, TX

Latitude: 28.7 Longitude: -96.1

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